👋 Hello! It wasn’t only Facebook that was down this week. The TA world came to a halt when LinkedIn was briefly hit with an outage as well: “It's not you, it's us,” the company said yesterday around 4pm when 43,000 users reported issues accessing the site for nearly an hour.

You know what’s always up and running? The RecruitmentMarketing.com Weekly. No outage here this week. Enjoy the read.

Questions? Comments? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

— Team RecruitmentMarketing.com ✨

Today’s edition is a 3-minute read. Here’s what to expect👇

🗞️ Tech headcount up amid layoffs
🧑‍💼 Staffing M&A deal numbers down
📋 TikTok, TheRealReal are hiring for TA roles
💻 Layoffs at Electronic Arts, Fisker

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Since 2022, Microsoft, Alphabet, Netflix, Amazon, and Meta said they would cut more than 70,000 jobs combined. But a new report this week from The Wall Street Journal shows that all of these technology giants have significantly expanded their workforces — many increasing headcount by over 50% — since the start of the pandemic.

They’re cutting jobs, but adding headcount? Make it make sense!
The big secret: Even with all the talk of layoffs, these tech players have (gasp!) continued to hire, mostly overseas or for warehouse positions, while concentrating layoffs on white-collar roles. Plus, many of them have acquired companies with significant employee headcount themselves, adding to their totals even more.

Zooming in.
Let’s look at Microsoft, for example. Most of Microsoft’s headcount growth seems to have come outside the U.S., according to the report. And even though the firm recently said it would cut 1,900 jobs in its video game unit, these cuts targeted employees of Activision Blizzard, which employed approximately 13,000 people before it was acquired by Microsoft in October 2023. All in all, the company increased its employee base by approximately 53% between 2019 and 2023.

Zooming out.
Similar booms played out during this period at Amazon (+91% headcount growth) Alphabet (+54%), Meta (+48%), Apple (+18%). Notably, all of these companies saw a slight dip (or no change at all) in numbers between 2022 and 2023.

Whatever the formula, it’s working.
We've all marveled at big tech's surge in recent years. The growth from just a small group of tech stocks has supercharged the S&P 500’s advance to a record high. According to the WSJ report, Amazon had more than doubled sales since 2019, while Meta and Alphabet have nearly done the same. And the productivity stat most important to the recruiting world: Revenue per employee was higher in 2023 for all these companies than it was before the pandemic.

Tips for recruiters in a world full of layoffs.
We know your job can get tricky amid all these layoffs, but we’ve got you covered. LaKeisha Fleming from RecruitmentMarketing.com this week wrote about the potential impact of layoffs on recruitment strategies, offering insights into hiring in affected industries and key considerations to bear in mind throughout the process.

📥️ Read more in The Wall Street Journal

NUMBERS

Numbers That’ll Make You Think

• 116 — The reported number of mergers and acquisitions in the staffing industry in 2023, down from a record level of 139 in 2022 (SIA)

• 37% — The percentage of people with disabilities who said they struggle to identify whether prospective jobs will be accommodating to their disability, according to a new survey (HR Brew)

• 871,000 — The number of workers in Canada who listed gig work as their main job (SIA)

• 18.6% — The percentage of the civilian labor force in 2023 comprised by foreign-born workers, up from 15.3% in 2006 (CNBC)

• 47% — The percentage of talent leaders who report having their budgets slashed in 2024, up from 39% in 2023 (Unleash)

OPEN ROLES VIA TALENTCONNECT

Jobs You Might Want (For Yourself!)

• Healthcare company Johnson & Johnson is hiring a Head of Talent Acquisition in Santa Clara, CA

• Hospitality company Omni Hotels & Resorts is hiring an Assistant Director of Human Resources in Bretton Woods, NH

• Entertainment agency Creative Artists Agency is hiring a Recruiting Coordinator in Los Angeles, CA

• Fashion retailer The RealReal is hiring a Senior Talent Acquisition Business Partner based remote

• Entertainment provider TikTok is hiring a Talent Acquisition Partner in Seattle, WA

• Manufacturing company Bubble is hiring a Talent Acquisition Specialist in New York, NY

  
  For a full list of open talent acquisition roles, check out TalentConnect, a job board for TA-lent, powered by RecruitmentMarketing.com

A MESSAGE FROM RECRUITMENTMARKETING.COM

LAYOFFS

Places For You To Source Fresh Talent

• Video game company Electronic Arts announced Wednesday that it will cut 5% of its workforce, one week after competitor Playstation announced a similar layoff (CNBC)

• Ad agency Wieden+Kennedy announced it had laid off 20% of its staff, totaling about 90 people (Fast Company)

• Cancer-focused software startup Project Ronin, co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, will shut down, the company said, terminating all 150 employees (Bloomberg)

• Electric vehicle startup Fisker is laying off 15% of its workforce, saying it likely does not have enough cash on hand to survive the next 12 months (TechCrunch)

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

M&A Deals, Industry Moves, & Other Things To Know This Week

• Employer of record platform Deel acquired PaySpace, a payroll and HR services provider, marking its second acquisition in as many months, after buying Zavvy in February (SIA)

• Tech giant IBM is reportedly asking its employees to volunteer themselves for layoffs as the company begins another round of global job cuts (InShorts)

• Industrial staffing firm TrueBlue announced it closed the sale of its staffing business PeopleReady to Vertical Staffing Resources (SIA)

• Community-powered hiring platform CollabWORK released its first-ever talent survey that brings new insights into the evolving expectations of job seekers (RecruitmentMarketing.com)

WEEKLY TRIVIA

Test Your TA Knowledge

 👋 Thanks for reading!