Tech Industry Faces Deep Layoffs

The tech industry is reeling from an economic downturn, with many major firms announcing significant layoffs. With two months of 2023 yet to be completed, 108,346 employees from 380 tech companies have been cut in widespread layoffs. This figure already makes up some 67% of all tech layoffs for the whole of 2022, after 160,997 jobs were shed during that year.

Prominent tech companies announcing layoffs in January included Google (12,000), Microsoft (10,000), Amazon (8,000) and Salesforce (8,000). In February, Dell (6,650), Yahoo! (1,600), Zoom (1,300) and GoDaddy (530) also announced job cuts. The latest company to release tech workers is Chinese tech giant Tencent, which dispensed with 300 employees last week.

Aside from announcing deep staff cuts, some companies also said they were cutting departments or otherwise rationalizing their operations. These included Walmart, which plans to shutter three US tech hubs, while Twitter intends to close two India offices and GitHub is going fully remote.

Highly skilled foreign tech workers in the US have been hardest hit and remain on edge as the job losses have affected even the most resilient companies. Many foreign workers have reported struggling to find new jobs to fulfill their visa conditions.

The jobs bloodbath represents the beginning of a challenging period for the tech industry as global demand cools in response to widespread monetary tightening measures enacted by central banks around the world in response to high inflation.