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Getting Laid (Off)

The tech industry appears to be bearing a disproportionate toll from 2022's economic downturn, with recent and planned layoffs at companies including Twitter, Meta-formerly-Facebook, and Intel bringing the total number of sacked tech workers to more than 45,000.

Per an analysis of the numbers following the 11,000-strong layoffs at Meta that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this morning, the number of tech workers laid off (or about to be laid off) this year is in excess of 45,500 — even as the economy itself appeared to gain more jobs than expected last month.

While Twitter's layoffs under new owner Elon Musk have garnered ample coverage, huge staff-cutting measures at other companies are leaving their marks as well. To date, the largest single cut is set to take place at Intel, with 20 percent of staff facing the copping block per a report from Bloomberg last month. With more than 120,000 employees, that number would be more than 24,000 — though, to be fair, it hasn't actually happened yet.

Downtrodden

As Insider reported at the end of October, these mass layoffs aren't exactly shocking given how earnings across the tech industry have weakened substantially amid this year's economic downturn.

The greatest of these earning losses, of course, have occurred at Meta, where earlier this year, investors eschewing stock broke the industry's record a for single-day selloff.

But of the companies that have laid off large percentages of their workforces so far, it's clear that stock losses predicated the firings, with Intel experiencing a year-long downward trend alongside Lyft, Shopify, Snapchat, and other tech companies that have done layoffs in recent months.

Mass job losses amid economic depression are nothing new, and many of the people getting laid off at these tech companies were already highly-paid and will likely receive competitive severance packages.

Nevertheless, it's a jarring trend — and there's no telling what this will do to the industry as a whole or the job force surrounding it now that it has upwards of 50,000 new people vying for work.

More tech stonks: If You Bought $1,000 in Tesla Stock in January, This Is How Much You'd Have Now


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