Marc Andreessen saw it coming. “The good big companies are overstaffed by 2x,” the venture capitalist and internet pioneer tweeted last April. “The bad big companies are overstaffed by 4x or more.”
He was talking about tech companies, which have since become the first wave of employers laying off thousands of workers—Amazon (18,000), Meta (11,000), Salesforce (8,000), and many more. Companies in other industries are following suit, including Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, and Dow Jones. A new EY survey finds that 98% of CEOs worldwide expect a recession, and most expect it to be worse than the Great Recession, the worst since World War II. Many top bosses won’t wait for a full-blown economic downturn before cutting staff, and more layoffs are poised to continue.
