There have been over 130,000 layoffs across the technology sector in the last five months

 
The technology sector was billed as the most exciting industry to work in.

Big offices, big dreams, big money were all part of the parcel for many companies attracting staff.

As many organisations caught onto the momentum of the pandemic, the same energy has not been particularly met on the other side.

Thousands of workers have since been laid off as the good times stopped rolling.

In fact, the technology sector’s layoffs are the highest since the dotcom bubble burst 22 years ago.

The BT Group is one of the latest companies cutting staff.

Fifty-five thousand have lost their jobs as part of a corporate restructure.

CEO Philip Jansen will freeze his £1.1 million salary until he retires, according to reports from Sky News.

The ground is also shifting as artificial intelligence takes hold and the economy worsens.

BT Group said it is laying off 11,000 staff because of the increased capacity for artificial intelligence in the workplace.

At the same time, companies like Apple and Goldman Sachs are among those restricting or banning the use of tools like ChatGPT amid privacy or data concerns.

Apple and Samsung are among companies restricting or banning the use of ChatGPT

 
Some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Apple and Amazon have banned or restricted OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The tool relies on artificial intelligence to produce responses to prompts entered by users.

However, major brands remain concerned around the privacy risks because of the data ChatGPT uses to improve its accuracy.

Samsung has previously reported employees unintentionally leaking confidential internal source code and meeting recordings through ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Apple has banned the web-platform over concerns surrounding data leaks.

Linda Yaccarino has officially taken over as Chief Executive Officer at Twitter

Linda Yaccarino was once the head of NBC Universal’s advertising and partnerships team.

Her appointment follows a Twitter poll where Musk asked users to vote on whether he should resign.

At the time, 57.5 per cent voted ‘yes’.

Twitter is undergoing a transformation, including addressing concerns around rising hate speech and disinformation on the platform.

Mr Musk said Yaccarino is the perfect person for the job.

“I think Linda’s going to do a great job running Twitter. I’ll provide guidance on technology development.

“Twitter has released more changes in the last six months than it has in the last six years.”

Twitter said it has taken down over 6 million pieces of content in the first half of 2022, before the platform was acquired over by billionaire Elon Musk.

Benjamin Powers is a technology reporter at The Messenger, who said the platform has some issues to address.

“It’s unclear how much he’ll [Musk] be stepping back.”

The New York Times reports advertising revenue attracted US$88 million from 1 April to the first week of May—a decrease of 59 per cent from a year earlier.

“I think the big problem is revenue. The pullback is that they’ve lost about 58 per cent of advertising revenue, which is huge for a company like Twitter.

“The subscription business, which involves getting a blue check, you pay $8 a month, really hasn’t kept up with that dynamic,” he said.