Jan 18 Reuters Keen to buttress margins and appease investor concerns at a time of slowing sales growth, big U.S. technology firms are expected to whittle away at their bloated workforce and costs through the next few months, reversing pandemicera excesses, analysts said.

Each of America39;s five largest tech companies, though, are expected to report a fall in profits for the OctoberDecember period, as they try to recalibrate in a highinterest environment. Facebookowner Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc are expected to report the biggest declines.

Analysts have cut their total revenue projection for the five companies Meta, Amazon, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp  by 5 to 561.4 billion as of January from October.

Big tech companies are expected to be among the biggest drags to SP 50039;s eleven sectors, with the information technology sector projected to report an earnings decline of 9.5, according to FactSet data.

I would not expect good news for a while … at least for the next three quarters. I would expect more layoffs, said Siddharth Singhai, chief investment officer at investment firm Ironhold Capital.

Amazon, which is expected to report that earnings slumped 38 and revenue grew at the slowest pace in over 22 years, started communicating to staff on Wednesday whether they were laid off as part of its decision to cut 18,000 jobs.

The reduction in workforce came after the retailer overhired based on pandemic demand, echoing Meta39;s aggressive…