New report highlights extent of tech industry layoffs
A new report has highlighted the extent to which mass layoffs are impacting the technology sector in the US.
More than 79,100 new layoffs occurred in the tech industry in February and March of this year, according to the study from Resume Genius. Tech giants Amazon, Microsoft and Dell cut 26,300 jobs in this period.
The West of the US was the area most severely affected by cuts, as more than 46,000 workers lost their jobs.
However, any employees left fearing for their jobs may have cause to believe things are moving in the right direction. The situation looked bleak in December when more than 90,000 workers were laid off, before a slight decline to 80,600 in January.
But that figure was then halved to 41,650 in February, before another decrease in March to 37,450.
Nevertheless, this does little to gloss over the fact that around 350,000 US tech employees at more than 400 companies have lost their jobs over the past few months.
Layoff floodgates well and truly open
The tech sector has been rocked by mass layoffs over the past year-and-a-half.
Silicon Valley endured a bleak 2022, with tech stocks falling by 30% on the S&P 500 – and problems have continued into 2023. Rising costs have had a hugely detrimental impact on businesses big and small across various sectors, and the impact on tech has been particularly bad.
Industry giants including Meta and Amazon have suffered significant losses, forcing them into desperate attempts to make savings. Perhaps the most high-profile cuts in recent months have come at Twitter, with CEO Elon Musk giving around half the company's workforce their marching orders with little notice after taking over back in October.
Meanwhile, many companies across the US straddling various industries have admitted to hiring too soon as they recovered from the pandemic.
Resume Genius, using data from several sources including Layoffs.fyi, Layoffs Tracker, Crunchbase, and TechCrunch, found that, in 2022, more than 135,000 employees at tech companies across 90 US cities lost their jobs. Of these, 42.7% were in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the world’s most prominent tech hubs.
Region by region, 84,800 people faced layoffs in the West, compared to 10,788 in the South.
Notably, 36% of all job losses occurred in November 2022, while 21,250 tech employees from 93 companies were let go in October. This compares to just 510 people at three companies back in January 2022.
Which industries are laying off the most employees?
Several industries within the world of tech have been making substantial changes over recent months.
Of all industries, the healthcare sector was the most severely impacted in 2022, making up 11.6% of tech-related layoffs. Meanwhile, the finance industry made up 9.7% of dismissals and marketing 7.8%.
Aerospace, agriculture, B2B, and social sectors were the least affected at 0.14% apiece. And, even amidst COVID-19, the travel industry made up 0.58% of cuts.
Read the full report: Tech Layoff Crisis Worsens
