After a shocking number of job cuts in 2023, the worst year the tech industry has ever seen, the massive wave of layoffs continues this year.
Although the tech giants have weathered the crises and come out the other side relatively unharmed, many have continued cutting their staff numbers in the last two months.
According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, tech companies laid off almost 41,800 employees year-to-date, only 6,000 less than in the entire second half of 2023.
SAP, Cisco, PayPal, and Farfetech layoffs lead the 2024 numbers
After a peak in the first months of 2023, the wave of layoffs in the tech industry has gradually weakened but still resulted in the highest annual number of job cuts this industry has ever seen. However, it seems that tech companies are again picking up the pace of layoffs in 2024.
Last year, the tech companies, led by the industry’s giants, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, laid off 262,915 people, or 100,000 more than a year before.
Although the entire market significantly recovered from the 2023 crisis, with all the major companies seeing their revenues and stock values skyrocket, almost 170 companies, from retail and crypto to finance and transportation markets, have been forced to make painful cost-cutting measures this year.
As our charts based on data from Layoffs.fyi shows, since the beginning of the year, tech companies have laid off 41,793 employees, or only 6,000 less than in the second half of 2023.
Almost 40% of all job cuts in the past two months came from only four companies. Statistics show the German software service provider SAP leads in 2024 layoffs, with 8,000 job cuts as part of a “restructuring process” announced last month. Cisco, PayPal, and Farfetech follow, with 4,250, 2,500, and 2,000 layoffs, respectively.
However, another six companies laid off 1,000 employees or more, including two GAFAM members, Microsoft and Google, Block, eBay, Wayfair, and Citrix. Analyzed by their location, most of the companies that made job cuts in 2024 are headquartered in the United States.
Almost half a million job cuts in four years
The latest layoffs have pushed the cumulative number of job cuts in the tech sector to shocking levels. Statistics show nearly half a million people working in the industry have lost their jobs since the beginning of 2021.
Even more shockingly, around 25% of all job cuts came from only 15 companies, including the GAMAF group and other tech giants like Ericsson, Salesforce, Phillips, Micron, Bookin.com, IBM, Uber, and Twitter. US tech giants had a massive role in the total layoff figures, with eight out of the ten largest job cuts to date.
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