Tech layoffs full steam ahead in 2024

The tech industry continues its trend of shedding dead weight in 2024, laying off tens of thousands of workers in the past month. Which companies made the list? Cybernews has the latest round-up.

In an effort to maximize profits and satisfy shareholders, tech leaders often choose to cut jobs and then cloak the bad news with fancy terms such as ‘company restructuring’ or ‘corporate downsizing.’

Last year proved no different with big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft leading the industry squeeze.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the tech giants are taking the cue again for the upcoming fiscal year.

In total, 2001 companies cut a total of 428,836 workers in 2023 – the equivalent of 1,175 people per day, according to stats by Trueup.com.

Showing no signs of slowing down, the numbers reveal a total of 45,052 tech workers have already been given their pink slips since January 1st.

The most recent layoff of 400 workers was announced Tuesday by electronic signature powerhouse DocuSign as part of a restructuring plan.

Here is the latest round up of tech job cuts announced so far this year:

• January 3rd - Xerox, 3,075 staff, 15% of workforce
• January 4th - Invision, 500 staff
• January 4th - Telefonica, 3412 staff
• January 8th - Unity Software, 1,800 staff, 25% of workforce
• January 9th - Amazon’s Twitch streaming service 500 staff, 35% of workforce
• January 10th - Amazon’s streaming and studio operations, 200+ staff
• January 10th - Cloud Software Group (parent company of Citrix), 1,000 staff, 12% workforce
• January 11th - Discord, 17% staff (4% workforce in August 2023)
• January 11th - Google’s Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, augmented reality team, 1,000 staff
• January 11th - Amazon’s Audible, 5% of its workforce
• January 11th - Walt Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, unspecified number
• January 16th - Alphabet’s Google advertising sales team, in the hundreds
• January 18th - Amazon Prime‘s The Buy unit, less than 5% of workforce
• January 21st - SolarEdge, 900 staff
• January 22nd - Alphabet’s new technology development lab, in the dozens
• January 22nd - Tencent’s Riot Games, 530 staff, 11% of workforce
• January 23rd - eBay, 1,000 staff, 9% of workforce
• January 23rd - SAP, 8,000 employees
• January 23rd - Vroom ecommerce auto sales, 800 staff, 90% of workforce
• January 24th - Aurora Innovational autonomous vehicle tech, 3% of workforce
• January 24th - IBM, some layoffs, in exchange for new AI job hires
• January 25th - Paramount Global media streaming services, unspecified number
• January 25th - Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard and Xbox, 1,900 staff
• January 26th - Flexport supply chain platform, 520 staff, 25% of workforce
• January 26th - Salesforce, 700 staff, 1% of workforce
• January 30th - Paypal, 2,500 staff
• January 30th- Block (Square) 1,000 staff
• January 31st - Proofpoint, 280 staff, 6% of workforce
• January 31st - Wipro IT consulting, in the hundreds
• January 31st - Innoviz LiDAR technology, 13% of workforce
• February 1st - Okta, 400 staff, 7% of workforce
• February 1st - Zoom, 150 staff, 2% of workforce
• February 5th - Snap, 528 staff, 10% of workforce
• February 6th - DocuSign 400 staff, 6% of workforce

Note that some companies such as Microsoft, Discord, SAP, and Zoom also had sizable layoffs in 2023.