Hi everyone, senior tech reporter Kylie Robison here. I don’t want to say the L-word first, but it’s starting to look like some feelings are changing.
Layoffs, not love, are in the air again. Google slashed hundreds of jobs today, while Instagram cut several dozen of its own on Wednesday Also this week, Amazon-owned Twitch lost 35% of its staff, and Amazon's Prime Video divisions announced several hundreds layoffs but "it's far lower than 35%" a spokesperson wrote to Fortune, and AI startup Humane, which raised over $200 million and plans to ship its new wearable in the coming months, just cut 4% of its employees. Adding to the bloodshed, video game software provider Unity Software plans to cut 1,800 jobs, or 25% of its staff.
It’s an unfortunate turn, but predictable. Spotify, Coinbase, Amazon, Salesforce, and more cut thousands of jobs last January after pandemic hiring frenzies led to bloated workforces. The new year means more scrutiny on budgets, and annual belt-tightening is already kicking off in a big way. One expert told CNBC that we’re in for a “bumpy landing,” but expects markets to bounce back later this year.
Layoffs.fyi, a website that dutifully tracks job cutting, shows that 263,000 tech employees were cut in 2023 alone. Only 11 days into 2024, there have been 24 tech companies that have laid off a total of 3,331 employees. It’s not all doom, though. X, GitHub, and Vercel are hiring, and when OpenAI risked losing all its staff after the surprise and ultimately temporary ouster of its CEO, swaths of companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta attempted to scoop up the valuable talent.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Fortune that more layoffs may be coming. But in general, he said many large tech companies will continue to hire. “The weaker hands will be exposed and many layoffs will happen for the secular decliners while the Big Tech players gain more market and mind share,” Ives said.
Looking forward, Layoffs.fyi founder Roger Lee told the SF Standard that we likely won’t see the same sweeping cuts we saw last year, like when Facebook-parent Meta and Microsoft each laid off more than 10,000 employees. However, companies that didn’t make large enough cuts in 2023 might continue to winnow their staff into 2024.
As the latest layoff cycle runs its course, I’m hopeful that things will gracefully swing back to normal soon enough. Until then, let's keep our résumés polished and our sense of humor intact. Maybe thank yourself that you didn’t invest in any NFTs.
Kylie Robison
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