Cognizant, the information technology company, is planning to lay off 7000 employees in the next couple of quarters. The Company is also readying to close its content moderation business, for clients such as Facebook, which will impact its finances in a big way. This will result in the loss of another 6000 jobs. In total, about two per cent of the company’s total workforce will be laid off. Mid-level to senior-level employees are likely to be most impacted.
The move will affect the revenue in its communications, media and technology segments too.
The Company had recently received a lot of flak for its content moderation work and associated work environment, which was affecting the mental health of the employees or moderators. It will however, complete the remaining contract before exiting.
These layoffs will help Cognizant invest more in other segments, such as cloud and internet of things, and cushion the impact of the losses. The saving from the downsizing is expected to be to the tune of $500 million in 2021 and record restructuring charges worth $150-200 million by end of 2020.
The Company also plans to reskill and redeploy about 5,000 of the total impacted employees.
The Company’s revenue from financial services increased 1.9 per cent to $1.49 billion, whereas revenue from healthcare services fell 1.2 per cent to $1.8 billion. These two segments comprise more than 50 per cent of the Company’s total revenue.
