GitHub, a Microsoft-owned company, has reportedly laid off all of its 142 engineering roles in India, as per the Business Today report. The laid-off employees were given two months' pay as severance and were made to sign a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement in lieu of the benefits.
The layoffs were not based on the performance of employees but rather were part of GitHub's cost-cutting measures. The company had previously announced that it would let go of 10 per cent of its workforce and freeze hiring until further notice.
In an e-mail to employees, GitHub chief executive officer (CEO) Thomas Dohmke justified the measures, stating that they were designed to protect the short-term health of the business while also granting them the capacity to invest in their long-term strategy.
GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 and in October last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that GitHub’s revenue was at $1 billion annually.
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Microsoft had also announced earlier this year that it would be laying off 10,000 employees by the third quarter of the fiscal year 2023 (FY23), which is less than 5 per cent of the company’s workforce. Other tech giants have also been slashing jobs, with Salesforce announcing a reduction of 10 per cent of its workforce, or nearly 8,000 employees Meta laying off thousands of employees and Amazon announcing two rounds of layoffs that affect 27,000 people.
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