Amid rising of inflation, a number of media and tech companies are facing layoffs and hiring freezes, such as Coinbase and Warner Bros. Discovery, which is cutting its sales force by as much as 30 percent. Even Elon Musk, who is still waiting to purchase Twitter, told employees of the social media giant during an all-hands call that he foresees layoffs in the future. Cheddar News takes a closer look into what this might mean for workers.

Closing Bell

Major Layoffs Hit Big Media and Tech Firms Like Coinbase, Warner Bros. Discovery

Welcome back to closing bell here on Cheddar news. Now, as inflation continues to rise, several big name companies are facing layoffs and hiring freezes, Warner brothers Discovery is offering voluntary buyouts to its ad sales team after the informant information reported, the company could cut as much as 30% of its sales staff that comes as others in the media and tech space are also announcing cost cutting measures. So for more we'll bring in terror news, Michelle castello, Michelle. What do you know so far about the Warner brothers Discovery Layoffs. Well, when the $43 billion merger between Warner brothers Warner Media and Discovery happened, they said they're going to have to cut costs and cost the tune of $3 billion. And part of this includes At this point laying off about 30% or up to 30% of Warner Media's sales force. So That's about 1000 jobs at this time. Now buyouts started being offered yesterday, but the idea really is that they're trying to find synergies because there are two distinct sales teams that are coming forward to the market during this upfront time. That's discovery sales team of course. And Warner Media's now when I went to the warnermedia up front, it did feel a little bit disjointed. I did feel like it was a little bit more Discovery heavy when it came to content, a lot of, a lot of people are looking for more of that HBO max content. So it does seem that Discovery is taking the lead on this, but the cost cutting, it was something that was expected. But hearing 1000 jobs or up to 1000 jobs will be like those of course a shock to the market at any time now. This comes at a time when coin base is also announcing it will be cutting staff. So how do these cases differ Now? Coin base I think is more reaction to what we're seeing in the market that we do feel like there is going to be a recession up ahead and what coin basis ceo called a crypto winter, meaning that he doesn't think those prices that were at an all time high in November 2021 and around the fall of 2021 will be back any time soon. So coin base is cutting about 18% of their staff, that's about 1100 jobs at this time. Again, another large amount but with the crypto socks in the crypto in the tank right now and a lot of people concerned that it's not gonna rebound right away, I think a lot of people are starting to look at places cutting back coin base being one of them, but I'm sure we're gonna see a lot of other in that crypto trading space um cut back as well. We know that Robin Hood did lay off a bunch of their staff earlier and I don't think this is going to be a one and done story. So do you think we're going to see more cutbacks across the media and obviously the tech industry's, I definitely do. I think with the recession going forward, we've already heard of a lot of tech companies that are cutting positions uh coin base, I mentioned Robin Hood peloton, in fact layoffs dot F. Y. I is estimating that about 15,000 jobs will be cut in the tech industry in the next few months. We also know that some of the big players are also uh kind of scaling back or temporarily pausing hires that includes meta. Um We also see companies like Uber and Lyft and just recently at his first all hands with twitter. Even Elon musk said that twitter will be facing some layoffs in the near future. We do know in a pitch back to investors, he said that twitter, he was hoping that twitter could ramp up hiring, but then ultimately eventually lay off about 900 jobs before reaching a normal medium twitter has about 7000 employees right now. Current ceo, Iraq parag Agarwal did say he didn't foresee any layoffs, but we must sing at the all hands that he does. I think twitter is a little bit on shaky ground right now. So does the general U. S. Job market look like right now? Well, you know what unemployment is actually as of the last jobs report, which was looking at May at an all time low, I think it's at 3.8% which is one of the lowest numbers, it's been for quite, sorry 3.6% which is one of the lowest numbers. It's been for Quite a few decades. Average hourly earnings did increase 0.3%. It isn't really going with inflation rate right now and we are adding certain jobs. Um The thing is right now though, with the thought of advertising being scaled back with the talk of recession, we had Alex talking about that earlier. I think we might see more layoffs and the tech sector which did hire pretty heavily during the pandemic. They are looking at scaling back now and that could only be a hard bringer for what we might see across other industries. Alright, chatter senior reporter Michelle castello. Thank you as always for that report.