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Just this week, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 employees.
Their actions follow job cuts earlier this month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Salesforce. More companies are expected to do the same, as firms that have been aggressively hiring for the past two years have slammed on the brakes and in many cases gone into reverse.
The cuts are in stark contrast to 2022, which had the second highest level of new job registrations at 4.5 million. But last year’s job numbers began to decline as the year went on, with December’s jobs report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years.
The highest level of hiring was recorded in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were added. But that happened after the first year of the pandemic, when the US effectively shut down and 9.3 million jobs were lost.
The current layoffs are across multiple industries, from media firms to Wall Street, but so far Big Tech is being hit particularly hard.
This is in contrast to job losses during the pandemic, where consumer shopping habits shifted to e-commerce and other online services during the lockdown. Tech companies started hiring people.
But now workers are returning to their offices and local shopping is recovering. Add in the growing likelihood of a recession, higher interest rates and weak demand due to rising prices, and tech businesses are cutting costs.
January was filled with headlines announcing job cuts at company after company. Here’s a list of the cuts this month – so far.
Google’s ( GOOGL ) parent company said Friday it is cutting 12,000 jobs across product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce. Alphabet has added 50,000 employees over the past two years as the pandemic created greater demand for its services. But recent recession fears have caused advertisers to pull back from their core digital ad business.
“Over the past two years, we have seen periods of dramatic growth,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. “To match and fuel that growth, we’ve hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
The tech giant is cutting 10,000 jobs, the company said in a securities filing on Wednesday. Globally, Microsoft has 221,000 full-time employees, 122,000 of whom are based in the United States.
CEO Satya Nadella said during a call in Davos that “no one can defy gravity” and that Microsoft cannot ignore the weaker global economy.
“We live in times of significant change, and as I meet with customers and partners, several things are clear,” Nadella wrote in a note. “First, as we’ve seen customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”
The publisher of news and opinion website Vox, technology website The Verge and New York Magazine announced Friday that they are cutting 7 percent of their staff, or about 130 people.
“We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and technology industries have faced,” CEO Jim Bankoff said in a memo.
The cuts are also hitting Wall Street hard. The world’s largest asset manager is cutting 500 jobs, or less than 3% of its workforce.
Today’s “unprecedented market environment” is a stark contrast to his attitude over the past three years, when he increased his staff by about 22%. The last major round of layoffs was in 2019.
The bank will cut up to 3,200 jobs this month amid a slump in global dealmaking activity. More than a third of the layoffs are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units. Goldman Sachs ( FADXX ) had almost 50,000 employees at the end of last year’s third quarter.
The crypto brokerage announced in early January that it was laying off 950 people — nearly one in five employees in its workforce. The move comes just months after Coinbase laid off 1,100 people.
Although Bitcoin had a solid start to the new year, crypto companies were hit by significant drops in the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
McDonald’s ( MCD ), which has thrived during the pandemic, plans to lay off some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczynski said this month.
“We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions,” Kempczynski said, outlining a plan to “break down internal barriers, increase innovation and reduce work that is not aligned with the priorities of the company.”
The online retailer of personalized subscription clothing said it plans to lay off 20% of its staff.
“We will be losing many talented team members across the company, and I am truly sorry,” Stitch Fix ( SFIX ) founder and former CEO Katrina Lake wrote in a blog post.
At the start of the new year, Amazon ( AMZN ) said it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees. Human resources departments at the company’s Amazon ( AMZN ) stores will be affected.
“Companies that have been around for a long time go through different phases. They are not in a headcount mode every year,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.
Amazon has thrived during the pandemic and has been hiring rapidly over the past few years. But demand has cooled as consumers return to their offline lives and struggle with high prices. Amazon says it has more than 800,000 employees.
At The New York Times DealBook Summit in November, Jassi said he believed Amazon “made the right decision” about rapidly building out its infrastructure, but said the hiring boom was “a lesson for everyone.”
Even as he spoke, Amazon warehouse workers, who last year helped organize the company’s first-ever U.S. union at a Staten Island facility, picketed Jassi’s appearance outside the conference venue.
“We definitely want to take this opportunity to let him know that the workers are waiting and we’re ready to negotiate our first contract,” Amazon union president Chris Smalls said, calling the protest a “welcome party” for Jassy.
Salesforce (CRM) will cut about 10% of its workforce of more than 70,000 employees and reduce its real estate footprint. In a letter to employees, Salesforce ( CRM ) chairman and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted he added too much to the company’s staff at the start of the pandemic.
–CNN’s Claire Duffy, Matt Egan, Oliver Darcy, Julia Horowitz, Kathryn Torbeck, Paul R. La Monica, Nathaniel Myerson, Paria Cavillanz, Daniel Wiener-Broner and Hannah Ziadi contributed to this report.
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