Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies laid off more than 60,000 employees last year

Tech job cuts are piling up as the companies that led the 10-year bull market adjust to a new reality.

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it was laying off 10,000 employees, which would reduce the company’s workforce by less than 5%. Amazon also began a new round of layoffs that are expected to eliminate more than 18,000 employees and become the biggest downsizing in the online retailer’s 28-year history.

The layoffs come amid slowing growth, rising interest rates to fight inflation and fears of a possible recession next year.

Here are some of the major cuts in the tech industry so far. All figures are approximations based on filings, public statements and media reports:

Microsoft is cutting 10,000 employees through March 31 as the software maker braces for slower revenue growth. The company is also taking a $1.2 billion charge.

“I’m confident that Microsoft will emerge stronger and more competitive,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a note to employees posted Wednesday on the company’s website. Some employees will find out this week if they lose their jobs, he wrote.

Earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees, mostly in its human resources and stores divisions. It came after Amazon said in November that it was looking to reduce its workforce, including in its devices and recruiting organizations. CNBC reported at the time that the company was considering laying off around 10,000 employees.

Amazon has been on a hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s global workforce grew to more than 1.6 million at the end of 2021, from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Parent company of Google Alphabet had largely avoided layoffs until January, when it cut 15% of employees at Verily, its health sciences division. Google itself has not made any significant layoffs as of January 18, but there are growing fears among employees that the ax will soon fall.

Crypto.com announced plans to lay off 20% of its workforce on January 13. The company had 2,450 employees, according to PitchBook data, suggesting around 490 employees were laid off.

CEO Kris Marszalek said in a blog post that the crypto exchange grew “ambitiously” but was unable to weather the collapse of Sam’s FTX crypto empire. Bankman-Fried without further reductions.

“All affected staff have already been notified,” Marszalek said in a post.

It’s Jan. ten, Coinbase announced plans to cut about a fifth of its workforce as it seeks to preserve cash during the crypto market downturn.

The exchange plans to cut 950 jobs, according to a blog post. Coinbase, which had around 4,700 employees at the end of September, had already cut its workforce by 18% in June, saying it needed to manage costs after growing “too rapidly” during the bull market.

“With perfect hindsight, in hindsight, we should have done more,” CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC in a phone interview at the time. “The best you can do is react quickly once the information is available, and that’s what we’re doing in this case.”

Salesforce is cutting 10% of its staff and reducing some office space as part of a restructuring plan, the company announced Jan. 4. It employed more than 79,000 people in December.

In a letter to employees, co-CEO Marc Benioff said customers have been more “measured” in their purchasing decisions given the challenging macro environment, leading Salesforce to make the “very difficult decision to lay off workers.

Salesforce said it would record charges of $1 billion to $1.4 billion related to workforce reductions and $450 million to $650 million related to office space reductions.

Parent Facebook Meta announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in November. The company said it plans to cut 13% of its staff, which represents more than 11,000 employees.

MetaThe company’s disappointing forecast for the fourth quarter of 2022 wiped out a quarter of the company’s market capitalization and pushed the stock to its lowest level since 2016.

The tech giant’s cuts come after it grew its workforce by around 60% during the pandemic. The company has been hit by competition from rivals such as TikTok, a general slowdown in online ad spending and challenges from Apple’s iOS changes.

Lyft announced in November that it had cut 13% of its workforce, or around 700 jobs. In a letter to employees, CEO Logan Green and Chairman John Zimmer pointed to “a likely recession over the next year” and rising ride-sharing insurance costs.

For the laid-off workers, the rideshare company promised 10 weeks of pay, healthcare coverage through the end of April, accelerated stock vesting for the Nov. 20 vesting date, and hiring assistance. Workers who had been with the company for more than four years will receive an additional four weeks’ pay, they added.

Online payments giant Stripe announced plans to lay off around 14% of its staff, or about 1,100 employees, in November.

CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff that the cuts were necessary amid rising inflation, fears of a looming recession, higher interest rates, energy shocks, budget budgets tighter investment and rarer start-up financing. Taken together, these factors signal “that 2022 represents the start of a different economic climate,” he said.

Stripe was valued at $95 billion last year and reportedly lowered its internal valuation to $74 billion in July.

In July, Shopify announced that it had laid off 1,000 employees, equivalent to 10% of its global workforce.

In a memo to staff, CEO Tobi Lutke acknowledged he had misjudged the duration of the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom and said the company was being hit by a broader pullback in online spending. Its share price is down 78% in 2022.

netflix announced two rounds of layoffs. In May, the streaming service cut 150 jobs after the company reported its first loss of subscribers in a decade. At the end of June, he announced another 300 layoffs.

In a statement to employees, Netflix said: “While we continue to make significant investments in the business, we have made these adjustments so that our costs increase in line with our slower revenue growth.”

At the end of August, Snap announced that it had laid off 20% of its workforce, which equates to more than 1,000 employees.

Break CEO Evan Spiegel told employees in a memo that the company needed to restructure its business to deal with its financial challenges. He said the company’s quarterly revenue growth rate of 8% year-over-year “is well below what we expected earlier this year.”

Retail brokerage firm Robinhood cut its workforce by 23% in August, after cutting its workforce by 9% in April. According to public documents and reports, this represents more than 1,100 employees.

Robin Hood CEO Vlad Tenev blamed “the deteriorating macroeconomic environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash.”

In June, You’re here CEO Elon Musk wrote in an email to all employees that the company was cutting 10% of employees. The Wall Street Journal estimated the cuts would affect about 6,000 employees, based on public documents.

“Tesla will reduce its salaried workforce by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas,” Musk wrote. “Note that this does not apply to anyone who actually builds cars, batteries, or installs solar power. Hourly headcount will increase.”