Tag: job cuts

eBay Could Be Considering Exiting NFT Sector, Reportedly Trims Web3 Team

eBay, the US-based ecommerce giant, is reportedly planning to bow out of the NFT space. As per reports, the platform has trimmed its Web3 team by 30 percent this week. While not a lot is known about eBay’s reported decision, some drama seems to have unfolded between eBay and the NFT marketplace KnownOrigin that it acquired in 2022. During the acquisition at the time, eBay was looking at establishing itself as a notable player in the NFT arena.

In the past few weeks, some senior officials from eBay tendered their resignations. Stef Jay, eBay’s business and strategy officer and one of KnownOrigin founders, David Moore – both have not been actively associated with the company for some weeks, as per a report by CoinGape.

After acquiring KnownOrigin, eBay absorbed the team running the NFT marketplace. The plan was to expand and build on partnerships that were already working with KnownOrigin. In the last eighteen months since the acquisition however, tensions between the eBay team and the KnownOrigin team reportedly rose. The information was disclosed in a report published by NFTGators, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.

“Many within the company are unhappy, blaming the lack of leadership and strategy for the layoffs. There are internal criticisms, even at senior levels, questioning the qualifications of the current head of Web3 as well as eBay’s strategy team,” the report quoted the source as saying.

In what seems like an internal communication, Moore informed his teammates that he has been impacted by the latest round of proposed redundancies in the company.

“Witnessing that level of layoffs within the team was brutal,” Moore said in his message – a screenshot of which has been published as part of the report by the NFTGators.
As of now, eBay has not addressed the situation. It remains unclear if these layoffs by eBay are part of an internal restructuring. Afterall, the overall NFT market recorded an all-time low in sales in 2023.

The sales of NFTs peaked in September 2021 when sales of these digital collectibles managed to amass around $881 million (roughly Rs. 7,344 crore). However, as of November 2023, NFT sales only managed to bring-in $10.85 million (roughly Rs. 90 crore).

Members of the KnownOrigin team have also not addressed the situation on any public domain as of now. eBay is planning to lay off a thousand more employees. This information was circulated to the eBay team by CEO Jamie Iannone in January.

“The most significant and toughest of these decisions is to reduce our current workforce by approximately 1,000 roles or an estimated nine percent of full-time employees. Additionally, we plan to scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months,” the official note had said at the time.

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CoinSwitch Cites Drop in User Queries for Trimming Customer Support Team: Details

The global crypto market, that is currently undergoing a slump, could be losing community members who do not have an appetite for risky investments at the time. This impact of the slowdown has been highlighted by crypto exchange CoinSwitch after it laid off 44 employees earlier this month from its customer support team due a drop in customer queries. The company is now among many facing the brunt of dealing with volatile assets such as cryptocurrencies, especially in the lack of rules and regulations dedicated to overseeing the sector.

Founded in 2017, CoinSwitch is a Bengaluru-based crypto exchange that claims to be catering to over 18 million users. “Queries from our users have dropped to just ten percent of what they used to be around a year ago. People who have been reaching out to us, usually tend to have questions regarding their KYC verifications,” a company official told Gadgets 360.

“We continuously evaluate our business to stay competitive, prioritizing innovation, value, and service for our customers. To that end, we right-sized our customer support team to align with the present volume of customer queries on our platform. This impacted the roles of 44 members of our customer support team, who voluntarily resigned from their roles after a detailed discussion with their managers earlier this month,” a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“Over the last year, many support team members have been absorbed into other functions based on the suitability of their skills for the other roles. We are extending all our support to the impacted employees. As and when volumes grow and we open new roles, we will be happy to welcome back those impacted.”

Back-to-back interest rate hikes in the US as well as the consecutive targeting of crypto players like Binance and Coinbase by the SEC in the US, have also acted as factors that slowed down the market momentum for cryptocurrencies in recent months. Currently, the overall cap of the crypto market stands at $1.05 trillion (roughly Rs. 86,80,402 crore), hanging by a thread to the psychologically significant trillion-dollar mark.

Earlier this month, India’s CoinDCX crypto exchange announced the layoff of 12 percent of its workforce, blaming the country’s tax regime for pushing investors away.

The crypto exchange, in its official statement, said that India’s TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) deductions on each crypto transaction has slowed down its business, especially during the ongoing bear market. A total of 71 people lost their jobs at CoinDCX during the recent round of layoffs.

On an international level, KuCoin, Binance, Genesis, and Huobi also laid off staff members between January and August this year succumbing to market pressure.

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Microsoft’s Salaried Staff Won’t Get Raise This Year, Reveals Leaked CEO Mail: Report

Microsoft will not raise salaries for full-time employees this year and is reducing budget for bonuses and stock awards, Insider reported on Wednesday, citing an internal email by CEO Satya Nadella.

The tech giant did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

“Last year, we made a significant investment in compensation driven by market conditions and company performance, nearly doubling our global merit budget…this year the economic conditions are very different across many dimensions” the report quoted Nadella saying.

In January, Microsoft said it would let go of 10,000 workers, adding to the tens of thousands layoffs announced before that across the technology sector as it deals with slowing growth in a turbulent economy.

Microsoft has now squarely placed its focus on generative AI, an area the industry sees as a bright spot.

In collaboration with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which also has received billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft, the tech giant has been infusing the AI tech into its Office products as well as search engine Bing.

Last week, Microsoft expanded public access to its generative artificial intelligence programs, despite fears that tech firms are rushing ahead too quickly with potentially dangerous technology.

In March this year, it was reported that Microsoft-owned GitHub laid off 142 people in India, including the entire staff in its engineering division. Those affected by the decision were deployed across the company’s offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Delhi. A GitHub spokesperson termed the decision as a part of the company’s reorganisation plan.

Xiaomi launched its camera focussed flagship Xiaomi 13 Ultra smartphone, while Apple opened it’s first stores in India this week. We discuss these developments, as well as other reports on smartphone-related rumours and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Accenture to Cut 19,000 Jobs Amid Concerns of Lower IT Spending Due to Global Economic Outlook

Accenture on Thursday lowered its annual revenue and profit forecasts and said it would cut about 2.5 percent of workforce, or 19,000 jobs, the latest sign that the worsening global economic outlook was sapping corporate spending on IT services.

More than half of the layoffs will affect staff at its non-billable corporate functions, the company said, sending its shares up more than 4 percent before the bell.

Accenture now expects annual revenue growth to be between 8 percent and 10 percent compared to the previous projection of 8 percent to 11 percent increase.

Last month, rival Cognizant Technology Solutions pointed to “muted” growth in bookings, or the deals IT services firms have in the pipeline, in 2022 after its first-quarter revenue forecast came in below market expectations.

Accenture said it now expects earnings per share to be in the range of $10.84 to $11.06 (roughly Rs. 890 to Rs. 900) compared to $11.20 to $11.52 (roughly Rs. 920 to Rs. 940) previously.

Meanwhile, US-based job search platform Indeed said on Wednesday it will cut about 2,200 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce, joining a host of companies rationalizing their labour force following a pandemic-fuelled hiring boom.

Chief Executive Chris Hyams, who will take a 25 percent cut in base pay, said future job openings in general were at or below pre-pandemic levels and that the company was too large.

Corporate America has been laying off staff at a pace not seen since the financial crisis over a decade ago, bracing for an economic downturn triggered by aggressive rate hikes by central banks around the world.

© Thomson Reuters 2023
 

The newly launched Oppo Find N2 Flip is the first foldable from the company to debut in India. But does it have what it takes to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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