Many of these layoffs were caused by overhiring during the covid-19 pandemic. More people were working, studing and shopping from home so they used more technology. This created a big demand for online services, apps and digital tools.
As we can see from the graph of the five companies in these years there was an upward trend in the employment of workers. Amazon added the most number of employees peaking at 1.6 milion employees in 2021.
But later as interest rates went up and companies realized that their growing number of employees wasn’t leading to higher profits. So many of them hit the panic button and started laying off thausands of workers all at once.
The United States had by far the highest number of layoffs 157 950 which is more then half of all global tech layoffs. California was especially affected with over 63 000 job cuts more then 40% of all U.S. tech layoffs and 22% of global layoffs.
The main reason for these layoffs were, as I said before overhiring during covid, but also high inflation, fears of a recession and a shift in focus toward artifical intelligence.
Dell made more money in 2024 but lost over 1.8 bilion dollars in gross profit in the past two years. So they decided to cut costs and that often means cutting jobs.
In Germany companies like SAP and Siemens also laid off thousands of people. SAP said it was focusing more on AI and growth areas, but many saw it as a way to hide the fact they were cutting jobs.
Let’s not overlook the electric vehicle sector. Despite being seen as a growth industry companies like Tesla and Li Auto laid off thousands of workers. Even though electric cars are growing making them is expensive and companies want to spend less.
