Blog

RETRENCHMENTS and unemployment have been widespread in the first two months of 2025, with job cuts announced across various industries.

From tech to retail, media and finance, major companies are starting to shed employees as they undergo restructuring and adapt to changing market conditions.

Here are some of the job cuts announced so far, including those in Singapore:

Technology sector

Meta
Meta Platforms kicked off a round of layoffs on Feb 10, targeting “low performers” and seeking fresh talent. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said in mid-January that Meta would cut 5 per cent of its workforce, or 36,000 employees.

Those cuts also hit Singapore, according to public posts on professional networking platform LinkedIn and sources, a report in The Straits Times indicated.

US-based employees were notified on Feb 10, while international employees would be informed later, Zuckerberg said. Job cuts have been consistent at Meta in recent years. The company laid off thousands of employees in 2022 and 2023 as part of an efficiency push.

Tik Tok

At least a dozen TikTok employees in Singapore were let go with immediate effect, as the firm trimmed its back-end teams globally to better align operations to long-term growth plans. Letters went out to employees in its trust and safety department on Feb 20 to inform them about the internal reorganisation.

The cuts affected teams in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the US, the report said. The move is for operational efficiency and will better align with its business needs.

Salesforce
Salesforce will axe more than 1,000 roles, even as the company simultaneously hires salespeople for new artificial intelligence (AI) products. It could not be determined which divisions the reductions were focused in. The company is focusing on maintaining profit margins following pressure from activist investors in 2023.

Sonos
Sonos, maker of high-end speakers and audio equipment, said it is shedding about 200 workers, or 12 per cent of its staff. The restructuring includes major changes to its product development team to make it “flatter, smaller and more focused”, the company said on Feb 5.

Amazon.com
Amazon is exiting its operations in Quebec, Canada, leading to the loss of more than 1,700 full-time jobs. It will close all seven warehouses in Quebec as it returns to a third-party delivery model to provide more savings to its customers, said a spokesperson on Jan 22. Quebec is the only location in Canada with unionised Amazon employees, who are expressing their dissatisfaction with the move. The move will also affect around 250 seasonal workers.

Workday
Software company Workday will lay off about 1,750 workers, or 8.5 per cent of its workforce. It will also exit certain owned office space, it wrote in a filing on Feb 5. The company said it would save money through selective hiring and using AI in its call centres and finance departments.

Renesas Electronics
Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics will cut less than 5 per cent of its global workforce, amounting to fewer than 1,000 positions, as it struggles with sluggish demand for its chips. It has also cancelled salary increases planned for this spring.

Financial services sector

HSBC
The Asia-focused lender has decided to shutter its international payments app Zing, potentially triggering around 400 job losses, including a substantial number of non-HSBC support staff.

HSBC Holdings is also kicking off a fresh round of job cuts at its investment bank as new chief executive officer Georges Elhedery continues his overhaul of Europe’s biggest lender. The latest phase of cuts will start in Asia, but will ultimately affect employees globally. It is unclear how many people will be affected by the moves, but the banks expect the moves to be completed by June 2025.

Some cuts are already underway in the firm’s markets division, but wider layoffs across the investment bank will begin as early as Feb 17, and dismissals will be staggered over several weeks and months. Reductions to senior staffers’ posts were expected to affect a little over 40 per cent of the company’s top 175 managers.

UBS
The group has cut more than 10,000 roles since it bought Credit Suisse. Global headcount stood at 108,648 at the end of last year, down from a peak of 119,100 at the end of June 2023, when UBS first absorbed Credit Suisse.

Plans to effectively complete the integration of Credit Suisse by the end of next year are expected to cost a total of about US$14 billion.

The deepest job cuts were made in the immediate aftermath of the takeover – headcount dropping by more than 3,000 in the third quarter of 2023. That pace has slowed since, and the workforce declined only by 748 staff in the final three months of last year.

Julius Baer
The bank announced around 400 job cuts in Switzerland, equivalent to about 5 per cent of the workforce. The group’s new chief executive officer Stefan Bollinger said that the cuts were due to a radical revamp of the bank’s leadership and a cost-cutting drive.

Its executive board is being cut to five members from 15 and the bank will seek an additional 110 million Swiss francs (S$164 million) in annual cost savings. It had discussed reducing the workforce by 10 per cent or less. The bank had about 7,400 employees at the end of 2023.

Citigroup
The global bank is trying to streamline its operations and lift profitability to compete more closely with its rivals, with an aim set out last year to reduce jobs by 20,000 by the end of 2026.

The company’s headcount was 229,000 as at the end of the fourth quarter, down by 10,000 from a year earlier.

Schroders
The firm plans to cut as much as 3 per cent of its workforce, cutting about 200 jobs that are mostly in technology. Schroders’ priority is to reposition the business at pace, as they transition to growth, said a spokesperson for the London-based firm

The cuts will help Schroders, which managed £774 billion (S$1.3 trillion) of assets as at Jun 30, “improve delivery and ensure we are well-placed to meet our 2025 objectives, which are centred on reinforcing our active investment proposition”, the spokesperson added.

BlackRock
The company is cutting roughly 1 per cent of its workforce after it committed more than US$25 billion for acquisitions last year to expand its reach in private-market assets and data, cutting roughly 1 per cent of its workforce.

The cuts are part of BlackRock’s efforts to realign its resources with the firm’s strategy.

The company has more than 21,000 employees, meaning the cuts apply to about 200 staff. The firm added 3,750 employees last year and expects to have 2,000 more in 2025 following the deals for Global Infrastructure Partners, private credit shop HPS Investment Partners and data firm Preqin.

Bridgewater Associates
The firm dismissed 7 per cent of its workforce on Jan 6 as the world’s biggest hedge fund seeks to remain lean and maintain the flexibility to hire top talent. The cuts affect about 90 employees.

The firm, whose headcount is now back to where it was in 2023, will continue hiring selectively.

Others

PropertyGuru
The property platform on Feb 13 axed 12 per cent, or 174 employees, as it seeks to streamline operations. The layoffs are across PropertyGuru, with three business units – Sendhelper, data and software solutions and PropertyGuru Finance – being shuttered.

This is part of PropertyGuru’s adjustments to prioritise its marketplace business.

“To sharpen this focus, we will direct all our energy, resources and talent towards our marketplaces in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand,” said new executive chairman Trevor Mather.

Affected employees will receive one month’s salary per year of service capped at 12 months or statutory severance – whichever is higher. An additional one month’s salary will also be paid out.

Performance bonuses for 2024 will be paid out, and three months of extended medical insurance and access to the employee assistance programme are being offered. Affected employees will get three months’ access to outplacement assistance, including access to a personal career consultant.

SingPost
SingPost will lay off 45 employees in the coming months in a move to restructure the company, it said on Feb 19. The affected employees are primarily in corporate support units, with a small number from the international business unit. The company said that the restructuring is the result of prolonged macroeconomic challenges, such as intense competition.

Automotive sector

General Motors
General Motors (GM) is cutting almost half of its workforce in the Cruise driverless car unit, amounting to about 1,000 positions. This includes chief executive officer Mark Whitten, the company revealed on Feb 4. He is leaving just seven months after he took the job. The cuts are part of GM’s quick exit from the robotaxi business and its shift in strategy.

Boeing
Boeing expects to have about 400 positions cut due to changes in Nasa’s Artemis programme and revised cost expectations. The aerospace manufacturer has been facing significant delays and rising costs with the Artemis programme, which was established by Nasa during the first term of US President Donald Trump.

Nissan
Nissan Motor has pledged to cut 9,000 jobs globally and reduce production capacity by 20 per cent, it said on Jan 29. It is cutting a work shift at two US vehicle assembly plants and trimming its hourly staff via buyouts, as the company considers a potential sale to Honda Motor.

Media sector

BBC
British broadcaster BBC has told 12 staff in its Singapore bureau to reapply for new roles after closing their positions, a report in ST indicated.

Affected staff have been given the chance to compete with external candidates for 11 new roles but were also told that they could be retrenched, the report said.

CNN
The US news network will shed 6 per cent of staff, or some 200 people, as it embarks on a major shakeup of staffing and programming amid a deluge of political news, said the outlet.

“Yes, there are job losses – but we don’t expect total headcount to fall much this year, if at all,” said CNN chief executive Mark Thompson.

“That’s because of the US$70 million we’re investing in our digital plans and the many new jobs it will pay for,” he added. The overall employee headcount could remain stable with new roles created.

Retail sector

Walmart
Walmart is eliminating hundreds of corporate roles and asking staffers to move to its central offices in Arkansas or California. It is also closing its office in Charlotte, North Carolina. Walmart asked employees to move to bigger hubs last year too, continuing its push to consolidate its corporate footprint.

Adidas and Puma
Sportswear giants Adidas and Puma could cut jobs and impact the number of positions at the group’s headquarters in southern Germany, a spokesperson said on Jan 23. The plans could affect up to 500 employees. The group is seeking to reduce costs and bolster profits, as it looks to move past a challenging few years after the controversy surrounding Kanye West.

Estee Lauder
The New York-based company is expanding its reconstructing plan to include up to 7,000 job cuts as forecast third-quarter profit well below estimates. This was due to persistent weak demand at airports and travel destinations such as Korea and China.

The company estimates a net reduction of 5,800 to 7,000 jobs by the end of FY 2026 as part of an expanded plan to help the cosmetics giant return to sales growth and restore a solid double-digit adjusted operating margin over the next few years.

As at Jun 30, 2024, the New York-based company had about 62,000 employees worldwide.