Oh, what a year it’s been. As 2023 draws to a close, hundreds of workers who may have experienced a sense of relief to survive the extensive workforce cuts thus far this week learned their jobs — and even the tech companies they work for — will be no more.
Such is the case for San Francisco-based D2iQ. The cloud computing and infrastructure company, which reportedly turned down a buyout offer from Microsoft in 2015, has announced it is winding down operations. The company says it has sold some of its assets and intellectual property to data center platform Nutanix and will use the proceeds to pay off some of its creditors.
In a time of the year usually considered the make or break of profitability for e-commerce and other retailers, Zulily has laid off all 839 of its employees in a total shutdown of its fulfillment centers in Nevada and Ohio, as well as its Seattle-based corporate headquarters. Originally scheduled to take place in February 2024, the company informed its workers in a Dec. 13 memo that due to “business circumstances” the layoffs were effective immediately.
Just months after beginning its attempt to reorganize through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Nashville, Tennessee-based SmileDirectClub is calling it quits. In a Customer FAQ posted on the company’s website, effective immediately there are no treatment or followup services available, and all unshipped orders have been canceled. It’s unclear how many of the company’s global workforce are in the U.S.
In yet another total shutdown, Sunfolding, an 11-year-old solar tracking startup based in San Francisco, has reported a 100% staff reduction. It’s not clear how many employees were affected. And while AV manufacturer Cruise is still a going concern, it has put a number on its layoff plans reported by Forbes in early November. According to the latest news from CNBC, the company confirmed a layoff of 24% of its workforce — 900 employees — for the most part in its commercial operations and related functions, effective Dec. 14.
The following companies were added to the tracker this week:
Week ended Dec. 15, 2023: At least 1,450 U.S. tech sector employees were laid off, per a Crunchbase News tally.
In 2023: More than 191,017 workers in U.S.-based tech companies (or tech companies with a large U.S. workforce) have been laid off in mass job cuts, according to a Crunchbase News tally.
In 2022: More than 93,000 jobs were slashed from public and private tech companies in the U.S.
This tracker includes layoffs conducted by U.S.-based companies or those with a strong U.S. presence and is updated at least weekly. We’ve included both startups and publicly traded, tech-heavy companies. We’ve also included companies based elsewhere that have a sizable team in the United States, such as Klarna, even when it’s unclear how much of the U.S. workforce has been affected by layoffs.
Layoff and workforce figures are best estimates based on reporting. We source the layoffs from media reports, our own reporting, social media posts and layoffs.fyi, a crowdsourced database of tech layoffs.
We recently updated our layoffs tracker to reflect the most recent round of layoffs each company has conducted. This allows us to quickly and more accurately track layoff trends, which is why you might notice some changes in our most recent numbers.
If an employee headcount cannot be confirmed to our standards, we note it as “unclear.”
Correction: We have updated the article to reflect the correct number of jobs cut in 2022.
A layoff can be either a permanent termination of someone’s employment — usually for cost-saving reasons — or a temporary one because there’s not enough work to justify a full workforce. Tech company layoffs generally fall into the permanent category.
A mass layoff is when a significant number of a company’s employees are cut in a short period of time, often as a result of economic conditions.
Tech layoffs increased throughout 2022 and 2023. Companies have given various reasons for conducting layoffs.
Some companies — especially those in the e-commerce sector — nearly doubled their employee headcount to meet consumer demand during the COVID-19 pandemic’s stay-at-home mandates, and now find that they are overstaffed for the current economic climate.
Large tech employers such as Salesforce and Google parent Alphabet have noted that the recent layoffs follow several years of rapid hiring fueled by fast growth — between 2019 and 2022, some companies nearly doubled their employee headcount. Some large tech companies that have done layoffs have also cited a decline in their stock price, slowing sales and fears of a recession as reasons for downsizing.
Amazon layoffs lead the 2023 numbers with 16,000 roles cut as of mid-May.
Layoffs at Alphabet, the parent company of Google, total about 12,000. Microsoft’s layoffs total about 10,000 workers, as do Facebook parent Meta’s layoffs. Together with Salesforce, these tech companies conducted the largest layoffs of the past two years, totaling tens of thousands of roles.
While those numbers are alarming, as of early April 2023 the combined layoffs at these companies represent only 8% of the number of new hires they made during the pandemic.
Many other venture-backed tech startups have also done layoffs, pointing to a slowdown in venture capital funding and falling startup valuations as factors in their decisions to conduct layoffs.
Yes, more layoffs are likely coming. While there are signs that the volume of layoffs is tapering, experts we talked to expect job cuts in the tech sector to continue for the foreseeable future as large tech companies and startups continue to battle economic headwinds.
Seed and early-stage startups in particular may continue to conduct layoffs in an attempt to extend their cash runways in a difficult venture funding environment.
Signs that may indicate a company is more likely to conduct layoffs include:
Tech layoffs will likely slow when we see more down rounds and when the global economy improves. In a down round, a company raises funds at a lower valuation than its previous financing round.
Startups that raised capital during the venture funding heyday at inflated valuations in 2021 are more likely to need to conduct layoffs in 2023.
More than 93,000 U.S. tech employees were laid off in 2022. As of mid-May 2023, around 150,000 U.S. tech employees have lost their jobs this year alone.
No, according to experts in the sector, who say a sale is unlikely to solve a tech company’s cash-flow issues. This is especially true as fewer startup M&A deals are happening in the current downturn.
Tech layoffs have hit across departments at many companies.
Many layoffs from the large tech giants were software engineers. Startups tend to be more likely to retain engineers in favor of doing layoffs in their talent and recruiting, marketing and other departments.
Google cut roles in its sales, recruiting, product and engineering teams. Amazon layoffs included jobs in its AWS cloud unit, at its social video platform Twitch, and in its advertising department. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s recruiting department would be the first to see job cuts.
Follow all of our tech layoffs news here and track which companies are cutting jobs with the layoffs tracker above.
While not daily, this Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker is updated weekly, if not more frequently, with the latest job cuts at U.S. tech employers.
Many tech companies continue to hire for open roles, despite layoffs in the sector. Find out more about Crunchbase’s Actively Hiring filter and how you can find companies with multiple open roles.
Crunchbase News also highlights recently funded startups that are actively hiring in our weekly Who’s Hiring feature. You can find all of our job market-related news here.
Yes. Please cite Crunchbase News and include a link to this Tech Layoffs Tracker.
Our hope is that this database will be as comprehensive as possible, so if we’ve missed any companies or if your company goes through layoffs, please let us know by filling out this form.
This layoff tracker is updated at least weekly, if not more frequently.
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