More than 4.25 lakh employees have lost their jobs in the massive layoff spree over the last two years. Over 2.6 lakh employees were laid off in this year till December 26 in the global technology and startup sector, with more than 1.6 lakh layoffs done last year. Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, Google and Microsoft were among the companies that laid off a large number of employees.

Tech layoffs in 2022-2023
A total of 1,178 tech companies laid off 2,60,771 employees in 2023, as per data provided by Layoffs.fyi. It also says that in 2022, 1064 tech companies cut 1,64,969 jobs. On average, about 555 employees lost their jobs every day in the last two years, this amounts to 23 workers every hour. In January 2023, about 89,554 employees were laid off.

More layoffs expected
Earlier this month, reports suggested Google may lay off more employees as the companies plan to shift operations based on AI tools. The job cuts have been reported in ad sales teams as Google relies more on machine-learning techniques to help customers buy even more ads.

Job cuts at Google
A report by The Information mentions that Google is planning to restructure its ad sales unit and this may impact some 30,000 jobs due to recent strides in AI. However, there is no indication of whether this exercise will result in job cuts. Earlier this year, Google let go of 12,000 employees – which is among the largest number of employees fired from a tech company.

Layoffs at Amazon
Job cuts at Amazon were regular in 2023. The company has been downsizing a lot of divisions. In 2022, Amazon eliminated 18,000 positions across various departments. Earlier this year, Amazon initiated another round of job cuts, impacting 9,000 employees. This brought the total number of employees being laid off to a staggering 27,000.

Meanwhile, other companies, including Meta (21,000 in two years), Microsoft (approx 16,000), and Twitter (now X/ around 6,000), also had large-scale layoffs.

Sean Downey, who oversees ad sales to big customers in the Americas, said at a department-wide meeting last week that Google plans to restructure its ad sales teams without specifying whether the move would include layoffs, according to the report.