Technology firms are shedding employees for AI investments and other reasons, with 46,000 job cuts so far
There have been more than 46,000 layoffs in the tech industry in the first two months of 2024, according to online tracker Layoffs.fyi. The pace of job cuts has picked up swiftly, squashing hopes for an end to last year’s doom and gloom in tech.
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Technology firms over-hired during the sector’s 2021 boom, but they’ve had no problem offloading their workforce — in fact, they’ve profited from it.
In January, Google $GOOGL said was cutting a few hundred jobs from its advertising sales team, and Apple $AAPL reportedly said it’s shutting down a 121-person team that works on AI features in San Diego, giving employees an ultimatum to relocate or face layoffs. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly wrote in a memo to employees that more layoffs are ahead, just hours after an announcement that the company was slashing 100 jobs at YouTube.
Jan. 2: Frontdesk, a Milwaukee-based “proptech” (property technology) company that leases and furnishes apartments for short and long term rentals, lays off its entire 200-person staff
Jan. 3: Lazada Group, one of Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce businesses, which is owned by tech giant Alibaba, lays off 100 staffers
Jan. 5: Cue, a healthcare tech startup focused on diagnostic testing, cuts 94 jobs
Jan. 6: NanoString, a public biotech company, lays off 10% of its workforce and gets a warning from Nasdaq $NDAQ that it will be delisted if shares don’t rebound to the minimum requirement before July
Jan. 8: New York-based design startup InVision, once valued at $2 billion and seen as a competitor to Adobe $ADBE, shuts down. Miami-based investment platform Here also shutters operations. Indian commerce company Flipkart cuts 1,000 jobs, and San Francisco’s video game software startup Unity lays off 25% of its staff
Jan. 10: Amazon says it will lay off hundreds of employees of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. Google cut hundreds of jobs across its Voice Assistant Unit, as well as its augmented reality and central engineering teams
Jan. 11: US-based audiobook app Audible (also owned by Amazon) and messaging app Discord, as well as the Indian tech company InMobi, announce job cuts of 100 or more employees each. Media outlet TechCrunch reports that Pixar, which is owned by Disney $DIS, plans to reduce its workforce by as much as 20% this year
Jan. 12: Veeam, a software company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, cuts about 300 jobs
Jan. 15: Apple says it plans to shutter its San Diego office, and workers who don’t relocate to Austin, Texas will be laid off
Jan. 16: Business Insider reports on a leaked memo from Google, showing it plans additional job cuts
Jan. 17: Google-owned YouTube slashes 100 jobs.
Jan. 18: Amazon reportedly plans to cut jobs in its Buy with Prime team, though it will affect fewer than 5% of staffers in the unit.
Jan. 26: Cloud-based software company Salesforce $CRM eliminates 700 roles.
Jan 30: PayPal $PYPL lays off about 2,500 workers, or 9% of its labor force. Cash App and Afterpay’s parent company Block $SQ cuts 1,000 jobs.
Feb. 1: Cloud software company Okta eliminates 7% of its workforce, or 400 people. Zoom $ZM lays off 150 workers, including its DEI team.
Feb. 2: Diagnostic testing startup Cue Health cuts 30% of its global staff.
Feb. 5: Uber lays off 168 employees of Drizly, the alcohol delivery service it acquired in 2021. Snapchat cuts 10% of its workforce.
Feb 6: Digital paperwork provider DocuSign eliminates 440 roles.
Feb. 7: Online grammar and spelling tool Grammarly lays off 230 employees.
Feb. 13: Grocery delivery app Instacart cuts 7% of its workforce, or around 250 employees.
Feb. 15: Toast, a restaurant tech company based in Boston, announces plans to cut 550 jobs.
Feb. 16: Luxury fashion online retailer Farfetch lays off about 2,000 workers.
Feb. 26: Expedia says it will lay off 1,500 workers.
Feb. 27: Apple says the 1,400 employees in its autonomous car division have three months to find reassignments or they’ll be laid off. Bumble announces cutbacks affecting 350 roles. Sony lays off 900 Playstation employees.
Feb. 28: Video game developer Electronic Arts $EA slashes 670 jobs.
March 12: IBM $IBM notifies staff it’s cutting jobs from its marketing and communications division.
April 3: Amazon Web Services (AWS) cuts hundreds of tech, sales, and marketing jobs in its cloud computing division.
The most recent job cuts are similar to the ones made by big tech companies like Google and Meta $META in late 2022 and 2023, though in smaller numbers. Tech layoffs may be happening in part due to companies shifting their priorities, as many have gone all-in on generative AI.
“With any kind of rapid, technological, or other change, there’s always a shakeout,” said Erica Groshen, a senior economics advisor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “It’s hard to know how many people are needed to get that work done. Sometimes you need a lot of work to get it off the ground but less work to keep it going.”
In general, tech companies pride themselves in avoiding so-called zombie operations — businesses that earn just enough money to continue operating — but want to be nimble, she added.
Tech talent can move to other industries including the public sector, which is in desperate need of AI expertise as governments try to regulate AI, or to tech-heavy agriculture sectors. In fact, Silicon Valley layoffs have been a boon for farm-equipment makers.
Some of the tech layoffs may also be fueling a surge in applications for new businesses, as the latest Census data shows a high-propensity of business applications coming most from the West, a tech-heavy region, and not from corporations. These people may have more cash to plow into a new business than people laid off from blue-collar jobs.
