Tech Companies Laid Off 90,000 Employees YTD, Twice Less than in the Same Period Last Year

Although tech industry layoffs continued in 2024, with companies letting go tens of thousands of employees over the past five months, the total layoff figures are much smaller than last year’s, showing the negative trend is finally slowing down.

According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, tech companies laid off almost 90,000 employees year-to-date, or twice less than in the five months of last year.

January and April Saw the Highest Number of Layoffs, more than 50,000 Combined

After reaching a peak at the end of 2022 and in the first month of 2023, the wave of layoffs in the tech industry has gradually weakened. However, 2023 still brought the highest number of layoffs this industry has ever seen.

According to Layoffs.fyi data, in 2023 alone, tech companies laid off almost 263,000 people or 100,000 more than a year before, led by the industry’s giants, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. However, the negative trend seems to be slowing down, with the tech sector reporting much less job cuts than last year.

Over the past five months, 330 tech companies have been forced to make painful cost-cutting measures and let go members of their staff, almost three times less than in the same period last year. The total number of layoffs is also significantly lower than in 2023. Statistics show nearly 90,000 employees from the tech sector got sacked year-to-date, or twice as less than in the same period last year when over 202,000 people lost their jobs.

Analyzed by months, almost 60% of all job cuts, or roughly 50,000, happened in January and March, the two worst months for tech layoffs in 2024. January brought over 31,000 job cuts, less than half the figure reported in the same month last year. Statistics show April brought another 22,000 layoffs, or 2,000 more than in the same month of 2023. The downsizing trend continued in May, with 9,654 job cuts during the last month, or 5,000 less than in May 2023.

Transportation is the Worst Hit Sector with 17,000 Layoffs Year-to-Date, 70% more than in the Entire 2023

The Layoffs data also show every fifth tech layoff in 2024 happened in the transportation sector, which reported over 17,500 job cuts year-to-date, or 70% more than in the entire 2023. Tech companies working in the hardware industry reported the second-highest number of job cuts, almost 10,00 in five months. The consumer and retail sectors follow, with 7,750 and 7,720 layoffs, respectively.  

Statistics also show that 2024 layoffs pushed the cumulative number of job cuts in the tech sector to shocking levels. Since the beginning of 2021, tech companies laid off more than 720,000 people.