NEW YORK, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Recent rounds of layoffs at large U.S. companies mark a departure from the usual pattern as executives navigate fears of an economic slowdown: this time, white-collar workers have been among the first and hardest hit, reported The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

"Demand has fallen sharply for professionals in technology, legal, scientific and finance fields, and companies that ramped up staffing during the pandemic, including tech firms, are slowing down hiring or cutting jobs as they close down some projects or scale back others," said the report.

According to the report, Amazon.com Inc. is cutting roughly 3 percent of its staff, or as many as 10,000 workers, in its retail, devices, human-resources and other divisions, but it is leaving largely untouched its hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers.

Meanwhile, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is concentrating layoffs in its recruiting and business teams as it cuts 13 percent of its workforce, or about 11,000 people. Layoffs at Ford Motor Co., Walmart Inc. and fast-fashion company H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB are also targeting salaried and office staff, rather than production or retail workers, the report said.

"There's a very clear white-collar recession in demand for labor," Julia Pollak, chief economist at online job site ZipRecruiter Inc, was quoted as saying. Enditem

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