Bloomberg plans to hire 1,000 employees amid Big Tech layoffs

The company uses the advantage of being private to expand during market downturns, says former long-term employee

Bloomberg's European headquarters in London. Michael Bloomberg, owner and co-founder, has approved adding more than 1,000 new employees in 2023. Photo: Bloomberg LP

Bloomberg, the US media group that is one of the largest worldwide providers of financial news, data, analytics and information, plans to hire 1,000 new employees in 2023 even as Big Tech and finance companies lay off thousands of people, according to an internal memo from the company posted on the career website Blind.

The post cited a memo distributed by Vlad Kliatchko, the head of product, data and engineering at Bloomberg.

The plan was mentioned as part of an announcement about a general restructuring in the division.

“At a time when many companies are retrenching, I’m excited to be part of an organisation that is continuing to make long-term investments,” Mr Kliatchko said.

“In fact, Mike [Michael Bloomberg, owner and co-founder of Bloomberg] has approved adding over 1,000 new employees across the company in 2023, many in PDE.”

After a frenzy of hiring during the pandemic as a result of the pivot to digitalisation, many companies in the technology sector including Spotify, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Google's parent Alphabet have cut thousands of jobs, amid rising interest rates and growing fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy.

Central banks have increased interest rates to curb inflation, but fears of a recession in the US are growing as a result of monetary tightening.

While overall, companies in the US let go of 363,824 jobs in 2022, 13 per cent more than in 2021, the technology sector was the leading job-cutting industry last year, according to Chicago-based global employment company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

A total of 97,171 jobs were cut in the technology sector last year, a 649 per cent increase from firings in the industry in 2021 — the highest since the so-called dot-com crash that started in 2000, according to a survey by the company.

Last week, Microsoft said it is laying off 10,000 of its 221,000 employees to adjust to changing macroeconomics and to cut overall costs at the technology company.

Earlier this month, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, Amazon, said it is laying off more than 18,000 workers, about 6 per cent of its workforce, amid concerns about the US economy and as fears of a global slowdown mount.

IBM is also cutting 3,900 jobs, or about 1.5 per cent of its global workforce.

Spotify, the Swedish music streaming service listed in the US, is cutting 6 per cent of its workforce, or about 600 employees, as part of efforts to increase efficiencies in a “challenging macro environment”, the company said this week.

Twitter’s full-time headcount has reportedly been reduced to about 1,300 active employees, including less than 550 full-time engineers, compared with about 7,500 positions prior to the company being acquired by Elon Musk last year, CNBC reported, citing internal company records.

In November, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would lay off 11,000 staff, or 13 per cent of the total workforce, amid declining revenue.

“Over the past several decades, Mike has consistently used the advantage of being a private company to expand during downturns in the market and economy,” Ted Merz, who worked for 32 years at Bloomberg, said in a post on LinkedIn.

“Public companies often face pressure from shareholders to cut costs, something we are currently seeing across the tech sector with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others.”

New York-headquartered Bloomberg has 176 offices worldwide and employs more than 19,000 people.

The billionaire media baron founded the company in 1981 and gradually expanded it internationally. The core business of the company is the Bloomberg Terminal, which gives users access to news stories by the company's journalists globally, market information and data, in addition to research across industries.

The privately held company charges $2,500 a month for a single Bloomberg Terminal, used by bankers, traders and money managers. Multiple subscriptions drive the price down to about $2,215 a month.

Mr Bloomberg, a former Mayor of New York, increased investment and hiring in the company after the dot-com meltdown in the early 2000s and held headcount steady after the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr Merz said in a LinkedIn post.

“He said those moments offered opportunities to make investments in infrastructure and talent that might not otherwise be possible,” Mr Merz added.

“Bloomberg has thrived in part due to those decisions, which send signals to its customers and its employees that it is focused on the long term.”