Around 109,000 tech industry employees from 392 different technology firms have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to the industry employment tracking website Layoffs.Fyi.
Earlier this month, the computer company Dell announced plans to cut about 6,650 employees, in a plan to reduce its workforce by about five percent. Last month Google began lay offs of 12,000 workers, or about 6 percent of its workforce. Microsoft also began cutting about 10,000 jobs in January. Amazon also announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs, on top of about 10,000 it cut at the end of 2022.
Dozens of smaller firms and start-ups have also cut hundreds of workers recently. On Tuesday, the India-based Polygon announced a plan to cut 100 employees, or about 20 percent of its workforce, according to Layoffs.Fyi. The day before, the Tokyo-based Crunchyroll, an anime-streaming service, cut 85 of its employees. Among U.S. firms alone, 250 companies have announced layoffs since the start of the year, impacting 84,262 jobs.
At the current pace, companies are shedding their workforce, and tech industry layoffs in 2023 are set to be 300 percent higher than they were in 2022. According to the Layoffs.Fyi website, 1,045 tech industry firms laid off about 160,997 employees over the course of 2022.
If the next 10 months of 2023 match the pace set in the first two months of the year, around 650,000 tech industry employees could be cut from their current jobs.
It remains to be seen if the trend of job losses will continue, or if the situation will stabilize.
As he announced the staff cuts at Dell, Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said “market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future” and the steps the company had taken to that point to stay ahead of the downturn were “no longer enough.”
After recently buying out Twitter, Elon Musk began cutting thousands of jobs. Musk went on to lay off about half of Twitter’s workforce. Earlier this month, Musk wrote on Twitter that he had saved the social media platform from bankruptcy and the company is “now trending to breakeven if we keep at it.”
The widespread tech industry layoffs could be the result of a correction after pandemic-era over-hiring. Online commerce saw a spike in 2020, as many Americans were confined to their homes. Salefsforce co-CEO Marc Benioff has attributed his company’s recent job losses to over-hiring, as has Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Tech companies may also be laying off employees as they brace for a potential recession.
NSA Scooping Up Laid-Off Tech Workers
While tens of thousands of U.S. tech industry employees are losing their jobs in the private sector, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been working to pull in new talent.
On Jan. 24, the military intelligence agency announced it “is undertaking one of its largest hiring surges in 30 years with openings for over 3,000 new employees.” The hiring surge includes openings for computer science, cybersecurity, math, data science, engineering, intelligence analysis, language analysis, communications, business, and accounting, with entry-, mid-, and senior-level positions.
NSA talent management senior strategist Christine Parker recently told the Washington Times that the agency had specifically focused its recruiting efforts on out-of-work or soon-to-be out-of-work tech industry employees.
“NSA started reaching out through LinkedIn, through some of our career boards, specifically sending messages to people that we thought might be linked to some companies that either were in the news saying they are going to lay off or were predicted to be laid off,” Parker told the Washington Times. “Just kind of let them know that we’re here and that we have this robust, ongoing hiring program.”
