The high-flying technology industry is facing a reckoning as the economy slows and customers pull back spending.
In the past month alone, tech companies have cut nearly 50,000 jobs, reversing a hiring frenzy that had ramped up over the period. pandemic as millions of Americans spend their lives online. Google’s parent Alphabet is cutting its workforce. It announced 12,000 layoffs on Friday, or about 6% of the global workforce.
Despite the increase in layoffs, most tech companies are still significantly larger than they were three years ago. But industry analysts expect further industry contraction in 2023 as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates as it puts the brakes on economic growth.
Tech cuts will be “the main theme this year as Silicon Valley moves into cost-cutting mode after a decade of hyper-growth,” Wedbush analysts said in a research note on Friday.
As for what this means for tech workers, experts are too early to say. Despite the cascade of layoff announcements, employment in the information sector grew for most of last year, only to decline in December. This suggests that demand for talent is strong enough that many laid-off tech workers are able to find new jobs.
“While layoffs at high-profile firms make headlines, many firms are desperate for more workers, especially technology workers. These workers are in high demand, from the auto industry to the Department of Veterans Affairs to nonprofits,” he said. Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
“The job market is still so tight that many tech workers and other skilled workers are squeezed out well before they have to collect an unemployment check. And they’re more likely to be hired by smaller firms with greater demand for workers than by large corporations.
The tech recession is an anomaly amid a job market that remains the tightest in decades, allowing many workers to command higher wages. In the economy, layoffs announced last year fell to the second-lowest level in 30 years tracked by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, behind only 2021.
But despite the decline in overall layoffs, tech layoffs have increased, with one in four record layoffs last year occurring in the tech sector.
Here are the biggest tech companies announcing layoffs since 2022.
Alphabet
Google parent he said On Jan. 20, it said it would cut 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global workforce of 186,000. CEO Sundar Pichai said the layoffs are being implemented “across Alphabet’s product areas, functions, tiers and regions.”
Pichai told employees that the Silicon Valley company simply hired too quickly during the pandemic.
“Over the past two years, we have seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai said in an email also posted on Alphabet’s corporate blog. “To accommodate and fuel this growth, we are hiring for a different economic reality than we face today.”
Amazon
The e-commerce company plans to cut about 18,000 jobs, starting in November and continuing this year. That’s just a fraction of its global workforce of 1.5 million.
While the vast majority of the company’s employees work in its sprawling warehouse and logistics operation — which has doubled in size during the pandemic — the cuts mainly affect white-collar workers in the company’s less profitable sectors, including the division responsible for voice assistants. , Alexa.
To the caravan
The online car retailer cut about 2,500 jobs in May 2022, or 12% of its workforce. was a company widely criticized for handling layoffs, many of which were done via Zoom and email.
The Phoenix-based company, which delivers new and used cars to buyers, blamed the layoffs on the “automobile recession.”
Coinbase
Cryptocurrency trading platform laid off about 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs in January. It is the second round of layoffs in less than a year, with 1,100 workers losing their jobs. in June.
Lyft
The ride-hailing service said it cut 13% of its workforce, almost 700, in November. The layoffs affect its corporate employees because Lyft’s army of drivers are considered independent businesses, not employees of the transportation company.
Meta
Facebook’s parent company in November He laid off 11,000 people, about 13% of the workforce. Meta has struggled more than many tech companies this year; its user base has shrunk, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spent billions building what he calls the “metaverse,” much to the consternation of his investors. The company’s shares were lost two-thirds of its value After peaking in August 2021.
Microsoft
This was reported by the software company in January About 10,000 jobs will be cut, almost 5% of its workforce, as it refocuses its strategy on AI and away from hardware. In the two years ending June 2022, Microsoft expanded from 163,000 employees to 221,000.
Robinhood
The company, whose program helps attract a new generation of investors to the market, announced in August that it would cut its workforce by 23%, or about 780 people. It is the second round of recent layoffs for the company, which cut 9% of its workforce last year.
Salesforce
Company laid off 10% of the workforce, that is, about 7,300 workers in January. It also said it was closing some offices, citing a “difficult” environment and low customer spending.
Snap
The parent company of social media platform Snapchat said it was laying off 20% of its employees in August. Snap’s workforce has grown to more than 5,600 employees in recent years, meaning that even after laying off more than 1,000 people, Snap’s staff will be larger than it was a year ago.
Strip
The payment processor announced about 1,000 layoffs in November, representing 14% of its workforce. In an email to employees posted on Stripe’s website, CEO Patrick Collison said the company expects “less time” amid worsening economic conditions.
About half of the social media platform’s 7,500 staff was released After Tesla’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk acquired the service in October. An unknown number left, some protesting the new ownership and Musk’s demand for an “extremely tough” attitude.
Wayfair
The online shopping company announced it would do so in January He laid off 1750 workers, or about 10% of its global workforce, as it adjusts to falling consumer demand following the pandemic’s home improvement boom. This is the second round of layoffs for the Boston-based company 870 employees in August.
CEO Niraj Shah said the company had “simply grown a lot”.
“Like our technology peers, we have grown our spending very rapidly over the past few years,” Shah said in a statement.