More than 139,000 tech-sector employees have lost their jobs since the start of 2023
By James Rogers
This year is firmly on pace to surpass 2022 for global tech redundancies, with tech companies laying off more than 139,000 employees so far
More than 148,000 global technology-sector employees have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to data compiled by the website Layoffs.fyi.
The website's tally of 2023 global tech layoffs has gone up more than fivefold since mid-January.
The data suggest that 2023 is firmly on pace to surpass 2022 for global tech redundancies, with 505 tech companies laying off 148,180 employees since the start of the year. Last year, 1,024 tech companies laid off a total of 154,336 employees, according to Layoffs.fyi.
Related: Meta to cut 10,000 more jobs in latest round of layoffs for Facebook parent
On Monday, Amazon.com Inc. said it was eliminating another 9,000 jobs
In a memo to staff, Amazon (AMZN) Chief Executive Andy Jassy said the cuts would take place over the next few weeks and primarily affect Amazon Web Services, People Experience and Technology Solutions, advertising and Twitch. [Twitch CEO Dan Clancy broke the news of 400 layoffs to employees in a blog post later Monday.]
"This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term," Jassy wrote.
Last week, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META)announced plans to lay off an additional 10,000 employees as it focuses on a "year of efficiency."
"With less hiring, I've made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team," Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on March 14. "We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May."
See also:Meta's pivot from 'irresponsible' metaverse spending earns stock an upgrade
Zuckerberg added: "Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven't yet hired."
Related: Meta cuts more jobs in latest tech layoffs
In November, Meta announced that it would cut 11,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce, in the first layoffs in the company's 18-year history.
A host of tech companies, including Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR), Twilio Inc. (TWLO), DocuSign Inc. (DOCU), Salesforce Inc. (CRM), SAP (SAP.XE), Zoom Video Communications Inc. (ZM), eBay Inc. (EBAY), Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL), PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL), International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Intel Corp. (INTC), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Spotify Technology (SPOT) and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)(GOOGL) have announced job cuts in 2023.
In late February, citing three people familiar with the matter, the New York Times reported that Twitter had laid off another 200 employees, equal to about 10% of the roughly 2,000 people still working at the company. MarketWatch has reached out to Twitter with a request for comment.
-James Rogers
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March 21, 2023 12:03 ET (16:03 GMT)
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