BlackRock Lays Off 500 Staff

The New York-based asset management company BlackRock has laid off 500 employees( nearly three per cent of its workforce) to combat global economic hardships. According to a Reuters report, the layoffs are part of its restructuring process. 

As of September 30, 2022, the company had 19,900 staff, BlackRock's filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission revealed.

The layoffs came at a time when the company was considering slowing down its hiring process. Additionally, it aimed to reduce company expenditures due to performance challenges. 

The economic downturn may affect the company's financial numbers. Multiple experts think that the company may witness a 22.4 per cent drop in fourth-quarter profit. 

The company has multiple investments in Indian companies. It invested Rs 4000 crores in Tata's renewable firms. Indian edtech major Byju's also raised funding from the company.  

In 2022, the global tech sector witnessed massive difficulties. Nearly 1,50,000 employees lost their jobs. Big tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google either laid off or announced plans to terminate employees. For instance, after the acrimonious takeover by Elon Musk, Twitter laid off nearly 7,500 workers. Meta, the parent of Facebook also fired 13 per cent of its workforce. Google announced plans to lay off 10,000 underperforming employees. 

The new year has also not started differently. Multinationals like Amazon and start-ups like Vimeo have already announced their layoff plans to keep their business on the profitability track. AI platform Scale also terminated 20 per cent of its employees.