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Yearender 2022: Stormy season for Asian tech behemoths
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Company performance is among the reasons to layoff employees. (Shutterstock/File)
T
he tech industry saw a handful of ups and downs that stretched to the extremes throughout 2022; from record-breaking initial public offerings (IPOs) to jaw-dropping shares nosedives and layoffs.
However, misfortune tipped the scale in its favor, overshadowing any achievement and led many to see the year as a gloomy “tech winter.”
Industry players and insiders said this downward trend was mainly an aftermath from the global macroeconomic turbulence.
“Macro challenges hogged the limelight in 2022. Higher inflation and interest rates pushed consumers, small and medium enterprises [SMEs], [bigger] enterprises and governments to tighten their belts,” said Roshan Raj Behera, the Southeast Asia partner of Indian management-consulting company Redseer.
Accordingly, Behera said many companies had to prioritize profitability over growth within a short time span, turning start-ups and tech companies to undertake painful pivots.
“Unfortunately, these changes led to redundancies in multiple roles and responsibilities. These have been a global trend and Southeast Asia was no exception,” Behera explained on Dec. 16, regarding what swept over the region.
Closing the year with a Dec. 2 layoff of 200 people or 30 percent of its workforce, JD.ID joined dozens of Indonesian start-ups that chose to axe its workers on the argument of efficiency for the sake of its survival.
