Top 10 largest tech layoffs that happened in 2022

The American workforce has been having a tough time of it since the beginning of the pandemic. Mandated lockdowns, loss of consumer interest, continued economic turmoil, and interest rate hikes, we have seen it all within the span of a year. The latest challenge that the US labor market faces is the sudden onset of layoffs in almost every industry.

If you have been feeling secure in your job, without a thought about the possibility of a layoff, you might have to reconsider things, given the situation of the job market. One of the sectors that were hit the hardest with layoffs is the tech industry. Large-scale tech and IT firms all over the globe are on a spree of layoffs which doesn’t show signs of slowing down. Who knows, it could be your job that gets cut down in the next round!

Let’s take a look at the most massive layoffs by big tech players in 2022 alone.

1. Meta

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of Metaverse cost the company’s Reality Labs division a whopping US$9.4 billion this year alone. This was a huge economic blow to the company. To deal with the consequences, Meta planned to let go of 11,000 of its employees worldwide.

2. Twitter

Musk started off his reign with a massive company-wide layoff of around 3,000 workers, including the top executives. According to Elon, the reason behind the layoffs was the fact that Twitter reportedly lost almost US$4 million per day. The revenue of Twitter has decreased by 1% in 2022 than in the previous year.

3. Snap

Snap laid off 20% of its workers, which amounts to around 6,000 employees, to see its share values soar. The company had to also scrap several of its projects, including the Pixy and Snap Originals.

4. Salesforce

Salesforce is planning a layoff of around 2,100 of its employees. The company plans to put their workers under a 30-day review after which they will be fired over several factors including performance issues.

5. Lyft

Almost 13% of the staff of Lyft has been laid off in 2022. The company has had several rounds of layoffs with 600 people let go at the latest round. The Lyft executives are planning to reduce the costs of operation with these layoffs. However, they will suffer a charge of US$30 million for it.

6. Stripe

Stripe just announced a 14% job cut. This will affect bout 1,100 jobs in the company’s fintech domain. According to the CEO, the company hired a massive number of workers during the pandemic to deal with rising e-commerce but the situation has changed now.

7. Microsoft

There was a large number of layoffs across many divisions of Microsoft, with almost 1,000 employees losing their jobs. Many who have lost their jobs are using social media to express their feelings.

8. Amazon

Amazon recently announced layoffs after a massive loss in stock value. The branches of the company with slow growth and unprofitable units are under scrutiny at present. Alexa domain alone has experienced a loss of nearly US$5 billion this year.

9. Coinbase

The virtual asset exchange let go of 60 employees from its recruiting and onboarding teams in the latest round of job cuts to increase the efficiency of operation. This second round of layoffs is happening at a time when the crypto market is declining.

10. Shopify

Shopify fired 10% of its workforce globally, with around 1,000 employees asked to clear their desks. The share value of the company decreased by 15% after this initiative. The CEO states the large pullback in online spending is a reason for the layoffs.