KEY POINTS
- 48 tech companies have announced job cuts since the New Year
- Unity Software announced the biggest workforce reductions so far in 2024
- More than 262,500 jobs eliminated in 2023
Thousands of tech industry workers have already lost their jobs in just 14 days since the New Year.
A total of 7,528 employees in 48 tech companies worldwide have been laid off from Jan. 1 to 12, according to data from layoffs.fyi, which monitors job cuts in the industry.
The biggest layoffs announcement came from videogame software provider Unity Software, which said in a regulatory filing that it would cut approximately 25% of its workforce, or 1,800 jobs.
The company said it was undergoing a restructuring and was looking to refocus its "core business" to "position itself for long-term and profitable growth."
Indian e-commerce company Flipkart followed suit, which reportedly reduced its workforce by 5-7%, or around 1,100-1,500 employees. The company is reportedly going through a restructuring, which is expected to be finalized next month.
Third on the list was Google. The tech giant told The Verge last week that it cut "a few hundred" positions in "each" of the teams responsible for the Pixel, Fitbit, Nest and Google Hardware products. Some roles in the Google Assistant and core engineering teams were also reportedly eliminated.
Google has had its fair share of layoffs since last year. Early in 2023, its parent company, Alphabet, announced around 12,000 job cuts, affecting its global workforce. Throughout the year, the tech behemoth implemented smaller reductions in various departments, including its Waymo team and its news unit.
Software company Veeam, business networking site New Work SE, mobile gaming company Playtika, gaming chat service Discord, live-streaming giant Twitch and internet services company IAC have also reportedly cut more than a hundred jobs since the start of the year.
The majority of tech firms that implemented layoffs in 2024 were in the consumer, data, finance and healthcare sectors. There were also cuts in the media, marketing and logistics industries.
A major round of layoffs is looming at asset management giant BlackRock.
Last year, 262,582 tech workers lost their jobs. More than a thousand tech companies, including big tech giants such as Microsoft and social media company Meta, conducted layoffs at the time. The 2023 layoffs count far exceeded the previous year's number, which was at 165,000.
Amazon still leads with most tech layoffs since post-pandemic. The e-commerce giant has eliminated around 27,410 jobs, while Facebook parent Meta has laid off 21,000 employees so far. The other major layoffs happened at cloud-based software company Salesforce (10,140), healthtech company Philips (10,000) and telecoms company Ericsson (8,500).
