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Layoffs of Tech Workers in 2023 Have Surpassed The Whole of 2022 Layoffs

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According to a recent report, it revealed that layoffs of tech workers in the opening two months of 2023 have surpassed the number of tech layoffs for the whole of last year.

Statistics reveal that in 2023, over 108,000 tech workers have been laid off so far, which represents 67.2% of the total amount of tech layoffs recorded in the whole of last year, which is about 160,997.

The string of incessant layoffs ravaging the global tech industry is attributed mainly to uncertain economic conditions. These layoffs are occurring in a period of slowing growth, higher interest rates to battle inflation, and fears of a possible recession next year.

In recent months, hundreds of thousands of tech workers have lost jobs at tech companies such as Twitter, Tesla, Snapchat, Amazon, Spotify, Microsoft, Google, Meta, etc, and other giant companies in recent months. While high-profile tech companies have already announced significant job cuts this year, the silver lining for technology pros is that many of the layoffs involve non-technical staff.

Currently, a lack of experienced tech talent means companies have been raising salaries for IT professionals, as analysts predict that raises for IT pros could jump 8% in 2023.

It is interesting to note that more than 102,000 workers in U.S.-based tech companies (or tech companies with a large U.S. workforce) have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2023, which has seen the Unemployment claims across the U.S. economy at an eight-year high.

The job cuts in tech land are piling up, as companies that led the 10-year bull market are beginning to adapt to a new reality. Analysts reveal that the job cuts are a form of belt-tightening for companies that hired aggressively in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.

The theory behind these ongoing layoffs is that it saves the cuts to the company’s cost, even though there’s an initial expenditure of millions or billions of dollars in severance. The idea is, with fewer salaries, the company’s costs are lower on an ongoing basis, which will enable them to stay afloat.

The massive layoffs in most tech companies are occurring because these companies went on a hiring spree during the pandemic when lockdowns sparked a tech buying spree to support remote work and an uptick in e-commerce, and now they face revenue declines, which has left them with no option than to trim the workforce.

In the five years leading up to the pandemic, the tech industry added 1.3 million workers, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by CompTIA. While employment trends for 2023 continue to change and evolve and many companies have experienced mass layoffs, economists say that this won’t necessarily be the norm moving forward.

M-Pesa Forms Strategic Partnership With Amazon to Offer Worldwide Remittance

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Kenyan mobile phone-based money transfer service M-Pesa has recently formed a strategic partnership with Amazon, to offer worldwide remittances.

Through its partnership with the e-commerce giant, M-pesa seeks to expand its business across Europe and could benefit from backup from Vodafone and Vodacom, Safaricom’s global shareholders to penetrate the European markets, and set itself apart from other traditional banks.

In May 2021, the fintech giant had hinted about this partnership, stating that the move was part of its efforts to expand its global reach and bounce back from a first profit decline in a decade.

M-Pesa is currently available in Kenya, where it has more than 30 million customers, as well as other African countries such as Egypt, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The mobile money service now serves about 51 million customers across seven countries in Africa, with a safe, secure and affordable way to send and receive money, top-up airtime, make bill payments, receive salaries, get short-term loans and much more.

It also enabled users to conduct transactions valued at more than $314 billion annually, and is responsible for 60% of formal remittances in Kenya and 20% in Tanzania.

Established on the 6th March 2007 by Vodafone’s Kenyan associate, Safaricom, M-PESA is reportedly Africa’s leading mobile money service with more than 604,000 active agents operating across different African countries. Following the success of its mobile money, it is now positioning itself in the remittance market as it seeks to replicate its African successes in new markets.

According to Aly-Khan Satchu, Economist and CEO of the investment advisory firm Rich Management Ltd, he disclosed that M-Pesa is effectively targeting a two-way flow, following its recently announced partnership with Amazon.

In his words, “With respect to inward remittances, I think M-Pesa has to look at charges if it is to capture a significant market share and a more sophisticated domestic platform which provides a suite of investment opportunities for inward remittances. Safaricom has the platform and point-to-point advantage and the scale to make this all come together”.

With forecasts showing that global money transfer markets will cross the trillion dollar mark as soon as next year, players in the remittance space are now keen to ring-fence their slice of the pie.

In June last year, Safaricom and Visa rolled out a new virtual card, called “M-PESA GlobalPay”, that enables customers in Kenya to shop using their mobile money account at more than 100 million merchants across 200 countries through Visa’s global network.

With over 15 years in financial services, M-Pesa has evolved from simple money transfer to become a robust payments platform and driver of financial inclusion for Kenyans.

M-Pesa spread quickly, and by 2010, it had become the most successful mobile-phone-based financial service in the developing world. By 2012, a stock of about 17 million M-Pesa accounts had been registered in Kenya. The service has been lauded for giving millions of people access to the formal financial system and for reducing crime in otherwise largely cash-based societies

Up-And-Coming Programming Languages That Will Be All Over the Place

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Programming languages have been the backbone of software development for many years now. The technology sector has been evolving at a rapid pace with new programming languages and frameworks emerging every year, just like a brand-new PlayAmo login pops us every now and then. The emergence of new programming languages is driven by the need for better programming tools and solutions to the problems developers face in their work.

As technology continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, so do the programming languages used to build the software that powers our world. While established languages like Java, Python, and C++ continue to dominate the industry, there are a number of up-and-coming languages that are poised to take over in the coming years. These programming languages have been gaining popularity in recent years due to their unique features and capabilities that make them stand out from the rest.

Rust

Rust was created by Mozilla and is designed to provide low-level control without sacrificing safety. Rust’s memory management system is unique, and it has been gaining traction for its ability to provide high-performance applications without compromising on security.

Rust’s memory management system is based on ownership and borrowing. The ownership system allows the compiler to track how memory is used in a program, and the borrowing system ensures that the memory is accessed in a safe and controlled manner. This makes Rust an ideal language for building high-performance and secure applications.

Rust’s popularity is also driven by its ability to interoperate with other languages such as C and C++. This allows developers to leverage existing codebases and libraries, making it easier to build and maintain large applications.

Kotlin

Kotlin is a cross-platform, statically-typed programming language that is designed to work seamlessly with Java. It was created by JetBrains, the company behind popular development tools such as IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm.

Kotlin has been gaining popularity in recent years due to its clean syntax, null safety, and functional programming features. It is also designed to work seamlessly with existing Java code, making it easier for developers to migrate to Kotlin.

Kotlin has become the preferred language for Android development, and it has been gaining popularity in the backend development community. Its clean syntax and functional programming features make it easier to write concise and maintainable code.

Swift

Swift is a programming language that was created by Apple in 2014. It was made to provide a better development experience for iOS and macOS developers. Swift’s syntax is more concise and expressive compared to Objective-C, the language it was designed to replace.

Swift has been gaining popularity in recent years due to its performance and safety features. It is a statically-typed language that provides automatic memory management, making it easier to write secure and efficient code.

Swift has also been gaining traction in the backend development community due to its server-side capabilities. Its ability to interoperate with existing C and Objective-C code makes it easier to integrate with existing codebases.

Go

Go is a programming language that was created by Google in 2009. It was created to provide a better development experience for large-scale networked systems. Go’s syntax is similar to C, making it easier for developers to learn and write code.

Go has been gaining popularity in recent years due to its performance and concurrency features. It is designed to work with modern hardware and can handle large-scale systems with ease. Go’s concurrency model is unique and makes it easier to write scalable applications.

Go’s popularity is also driven by its ability to interoperate with other languages such as C and Python. This allows developers to leverage existing codebases and libraries, making it easier to build and maintain large applications.

Julia

Julia is a high-level, high-performance programming language that is designed for numerical and scientific computing. It was developed at MIT and has been gaining traction in the data science community due to its speed, ease of use, and ability to handle large datasets.

Julia offers several features that make it ideal for scientific computing, such as a JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler, parallel computing capabilities, and multiple dispatches. It is also interoperable with other languages, such as Python and R. Julia has been used by companies like IBM, Ford, and Airbnb.

Julia has been gaining traction in the scientific and data analysis communities because of its speed and ease of use. It is being used by companies such as Intel and Amazon for scientific computing and machine learning applications. Additionally, the language has become a favorite of the data science community because of its support for data visualization, statistical analysis, and other data science applications.

TypeScript

TypeScript is gaining popularity among web developers due to its ability to catch errors at compile time and make development more efficient.

TypeScript offers several features that make it appealing to developers, such as optional types, interfaces, and type inference. It is also interoperable with JavaScript, making it easy to integrate with existing codebases. TypeScript has been used by companies like Microsoft, Asana, and Slack.

Elixir

Elixir is a functional programming language that was designed to be scalable, fault-tolerant, and easy to write concurrent applications. Elixir runs on the Erlang virtual machine and has features such as pattern matching, lightweight processes, and message passing that make it well-suited for building distributed systems amongst other aspects. Elixir also has a simple syntax that makes it easy to learn and use. 

The Best B2B Messaging Platforms to Check Out Now

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Business-to-business messaging platforms have become a vital tool for companies looking to streamline their communication and collaboration with clients, suppliers, and partners like Ivi Bet and other establishments. These messaging platforms offer a range of features, from secure messaging to file sharing, project management, and video conferencing, to enable businesses to work seamlessly across multiple teams and locations.

Choosing the right B2B messaging platform for your business can be a daunting task, given the myriad of options available in the market. In this article, we have compiled a list of the best B2B messaging platforms to check out now, based on their features, ease of use, and overall value for money.

Slack

Slack is a popular messaging platform that enables businesses to communicate and collaborate with teams, partners, and customers in real time. The platform offers a range of features, including instant messaging, file sharing, project management, and video conferencing, all of which are accessible from a single interface.

One of the key strengths of Slack is its ability to integrate with a range of third-party apps, including Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello, and Zoom, among others. This makes it easy to manage all your business processes from a single platform, without having to switch between multiple tools.

Slack is also highly customizable, allowing businesses to set up custom channels for different teams and projects, and personalize their interface with themes and emojis. The platform offers a free plan, as well as several paid plans with additional features, such as advanced security and compliance tools, and unlimited message storage.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that enables businesses to communicate and collaborate with teams, partners, and customers, using instant messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, and project management tools. The platform is part of the Microsoft Office 365 suite of tools, which makes it easy to integrate with other Microsoft apps, such as Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint.

One of the key strengths of Microsoft Teams is its powerful video conferencing tool, which can accommodate up to 10,000 participants. The platform also offers advanced security and compliance features, such as data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and eDiscovery tools, which are critical for businesses that handle sensitive data.

Microsoft Teams is available in a free plan, as well as several paid plans with additional features, such as meeting recording, larger file storage, and custom branding.

Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing platform that enables businesses to host virtual meetings with teams, partners, and customers, from anywhere in the world. The platform offers a range of features, such as screen sharing, virtual backgrounds, and recording, which make it easy to collaborate with others remotely.

One of the key strengths of Zoom is its ease of use, with a simple and intuitive interface that requires no technical skills to operate. The platform also offers robust security features, such as end-to-end encryption and password protection, which ensure that your meetings are secure and private.

Zoom is available in a free plan, as well as several paid plans with additional features, such as larger meeting capacity, cloud recording, and virtual events.

WhatsApp Business

WhatsApp Business is a messaging platform that enables businesses to communicate with customers via chat, voice, and video, using the popular WhatsApp app. The platform offers a range of features, such as automated messages, quick replies, and labels, which make it easy to manage customer interactions.

One of the key strengths of WhatsApp Business is its widespread popularity, with over 2 billion users worldwide. This makes it easy to connect with customers who are already using the app, without having to invest in new communication channels. WhatsApp Business is available for free, with no hidden costs or subscription fees. However, the platform does not offer advanced collaboration or project management features.

Chanty

Chanty is a cloud-based messaging platform that is designed for teams to communicate and collaborate. Chanty offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and file sharing. Chanty also has a built-in task manager to help teams stay organized. Chanty’s user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a great choice for small businesses.

Flock

Flock is a messaging platform that offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and video conferencing. Flock also offers integrations with other apps such as Google Drive, Trello, and Asana. Flock’s user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a great choice for small and medium-sized businesses.

Cisco Webex Teams

Cisco Webex Teams is a messaging platform that offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and video conferencing. Cisco Webex Teams also offers integrations with other apps such as Microsoft Office and Salesforce. Cisco Webex Teams is a popular choice for large businesses due to its security features and scalability.

Twist

Twist is a messaging platform that is designed to improve team communication and collaboration. Twist offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and thread conversations. Twist also has a built-in task manager to help teams stay organized. Twist’s user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a great choice for small businesses.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts is a messaging platform that is part of the Google Suite. It offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and video conferencing. Google Hangouts also offers integrations with other Google apps such as Google Drive and Google Calendar. Google Hangouts is a popular choice for businesses that already use Google products.

Telegram

Telegram is a messaging platform that is designed to be fast, secure, and simple. Telegram offers features such as channels, direct messaging, and file sharing. Telegram also offers self-destructing messages and end-to-end encryption. Telegram is a popular choice for businesses that prioritize security.

Ericsson to Cut About 8,500 Jobs Globally in A Fresh Move to Cut Cost

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Ericsson has joined the growing number of tech companies cutting the size of their workforce, as economic headwinds tighten its grip on the tech industry.

The telecom equipment maker said in a memo it plans to lay off 8,500 employees globally in a bid to cut costs.

“The way headcount reductions will be managed will differ depending on local country practice,” Chief Executive Borje Ekholm wrote in the memo.

“In several countries the headcount reductions have already been communicated this week,” he added.

Ericsson joins other tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Twitter that have reduced headcount as the covid-induced economic boom dies down. The share of its 5G equipment dropped significantly, cutting the company’s output to a low in the fourth quarter.

The Swedish company’s move would be the largest layoff to hit the telecoms industry.

Ericsson has a workforce of more than 105,000 employees worldwide, and has been negotiating with workers union in Sweden to cut about 1,400 jobs as part of its broader plan to reduce its global headcount.

The company’s Chief Financial Officer, Carl Mellander, said the cost-cutting plan will include reducing consultants, real estate agents and the overall employee headcount. On Monday, Ericsson announced a decision to lay off some employees in Sweden through a voluntary program, after reaching an agreement with the workers union.

Though Ericsson did not say which region the cuts will impact most, analysts predicted that it will likely be places where sales have been poor – pointing at India and North America. The company had in December disclosed that it would cut costs by 9 billion crowns ($880 million) by the end of 2023 as demand slows in some markets, including North America, per Reuters.

“It is our obligation to take this cost out to remain competitive,” Ekholm said in the memo. “Our biggest enemy right now may be complacency.”

The pandemic-induced economic boom inspired an increase in sales, which saw orders for telecom equipment go up. But the telecom industry has seen a significant decline as the pandemic wanes. The resulting economic downturn has forced many telecom companies to consider cutting costs including reducing their headcount.

Verizon, one of the largest telecom companies, plans to spend between $18.25 billion and $19.25 billion this year, about $5 billion cut from the $23 billion budget it spent last year.

This is not the first time Ericsson will trim its workforce as part of its measures to cut costs. In 2015, the company initiated a similar plan to cut 2,200 jobs, a move aimed at saving the telecom giant about $1.08 billion by 2017.