COVID-19 continues to change the workforce as many companies adjust to this new norm. According to a new report from Prospect and BDC Capital, it has stated that one-quarter of Canadian startups have made layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These layoffs represent 5.5% of the overall Canadian workforce. The report also pointed out that employees that held roles within marketing, communication, software engineering and product were most impacted by the layoffs. Due to the pandemic it is estimated that 73% of Canadian startups have scaled-back their hiring while the other 30% have taken a pause on all hiring activities until the foreseeable future. Tech companies, who work within the sharing economy have been hit the hardest as their customers are following the shelter-in-place order.
This week alone we have seen massive layoffs from many Tech Companies such as:
- Uber has announced that it will be laying off 3,700 full-time employees.
- Lyft announced recently about 17% of their workforce will be reduced
- Airbnb laid off about 1900 employees earlier this month.
Many tech companies are encouraging or implementing mandatory at home work orders. Companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and Amazon implemented remote working policies for many or all of their employees around the globe due to the coronavirus outbreak. Tobi Lutke, announced on Twitter that Shopify will close all their offices until 2021 and all of the staff will be permanently working remotely as they move towards a digital workspace. This pandemic will continue to change the workforce as more companies continue to go remote.
