Technology companies have continued to suffer through industry-wide layoffs in 2023. Since the beginning of the year, the global technology industry has seen over 240,000 jobs lost to cuts.
Layoffs have affected startups to some of the biggest companies in the world, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more.
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Most staff cuts were seen at the beginning of the year continuing from the tail end of 2022, which saw the technology industry readjust its plans after a pandemic spending boom and declining revenues.
However, as 2023 draws to a close, technology layoffs have started to ramp up again.
Smitarani Tripathy, social media analyst at research company GlobalData, said in a January 2022 blog post that most industry leaders believed the “ongoing layoffs are the outcome of fear of recession” as well as “over-hiring led by tech bubbles during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Verdict takes a look at the largest cuts made throughout the technology industry in 2023.
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By GlobalDataJanuary
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced it would be laying off 12,000 staff in January. The announcement came after the company shut down its remote console Stadia.
Amazon announced it would be cutting 18,000 jobs throughout 2023. The company said most of the cuts would be made in retail and recruiting.
IBM
IBM announced it was cutting 3,900 jobs in January after it divested its Watson Health AI business.
Microsoft announced it was cutting 10,000 employees from January to the end of March. The cuts were the second-largest wave of layoffs in the company. The technology giant looked to cut costs as customers pulled back on spending.
PayPal
PayPal announced it was laying off 2,000 staff members in January. The company stated the cuts would help the payments company to focus on “core strategic priorities.”
Spotify announced it would be cutting 6% of its workforce in January. The cuts came after the audio giant spent millions in expanding its podcast offerings, but announced a restructuring effort at the beginning of 2023.
February
Yahoo
Yahoo announced in February that it would be cutting 1,600 employees throughout 2023. Jim Lanzone, Yahoo CEO, said the cuts were due to a restructuring of the advertising technology unit. The CEO claimed the economic environment was not to blame for the cuts.
Zoom
Zoom announced it was cutting 1,300 employees in February, equating to around 15% of its workforce. CEO Eric Yuan said the company failed to hire “sustainably” during its boom throughout the pandemic.
Dell
Dell announced it had cut around 6,650 employees in February. The company has suffered through a tough pandemic recovery. Dell said the layoffs were needed to help the company get back into a better economic position.
March
Meta
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta announced it was cutting 10,000 staff as part of its mission to cut costs. The announcement followed the company cutting 11,000 jobs in 2022.
April
Lyft announced it was cutting around 26% of its workforce in April, equating to around 1,072 staff.
Cloud storage giant Dropbox announced it was cutting 500 employees in April, citing a rough economy and maturing business.
Co-founder Drew Houston said the layoffs were also due to the “urgency” of focusing on artificial intelligence (AI).
May
Shopify, the e-commerce platform, announced it had laid off around 20% of its workforce in May. The company said it needed to become more efficient now that the “stable economic boom times” had finished.
June
Spotify
Spotify made a second round of cuts to its workforce in June 2023. The company announced it would be cutting 200 jobs in its podcast unit, a division it considers a key component of its future growth.
July
Alphabet (Google)
Accenture, Google’s contracting partner, cut 80 members of staff in July. The company claimed it was due to cost-cutting.
September
Fortnite maker Epic Games laid off around 830 employees in September, marking around 16% of its workforce.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said the company was “spending way more money” that it makes. Sweeny claimed the company had “concluded that layoffs are the only way”.
October
In October, Linkedin announced it was cutting around 688 staff from its finance, product and engineering divisions.
November
Amazon
In November, Amazon cut around 180 jobs from its gaming division, according to a Bloomberg report at the time. Later on in the month, Amazon cut several hundred jobs in its Alexa division.
ByteDance
TikTok owner Bytedance reportedly made cuts to its gaming division Nuverse in November.
Cruise
General Motors autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Cruise, reportedly told employees that it will be making cuts to its workforce. It has not yet been reported how many people will be affected.
December
Spotify
Spotify announced it would be cutting almost a fifth of its workforce, marking its third round of layoffs this year. Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, told employees that the platform needed to “rightsize” to account for a very different environment.
The layoffs equated to around 1,500 staff.
