The tech industry had a rough start to 2024. Technology companies worldwide saw a significant reduction in their workforce in the first quarter of 2024, with over 57 thousand employees being laid off. By the second quarter, layoffs impacted more than 43 thousand tech employees. In the final quarter of the year around 12 thousand employees were laid off. Layoffs impacting all global tech giants Layoffs in the global market escalated dramatically in the first quarter of 2023, when the sector saw a staggering record high of 167.6 thousand employees losing their jobs. Major tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and IBM all contributed to this figure during this quarter. Amazon, in particular, conducted the most rounds of layoffs with the highest number of employees laid off among global tech giants. Industries most affected include the consumer, hardware, food, and healthcare sectors. Notable companies that have laid off a significant number of staff include Flink, Booking.com, Uber, PayPal, LinkedIn, and Peloton, among others. Overhiring led the trend, but will AI keep it going? Layoffs in the technology sector started following an overhiring spree during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, companies expanded their workforce to meet increased demand for digital services during lockdowns. However, as lockdowns ended, economic uncertainties persisted and companies reevaluated their strategies, layoffs became inevitable, resulting in a record number of 263 thousand laid off employees in the global tech sector by trhe end of 2022. Moreover, it is still unclear how advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) will impact layoff trends in the tech sector. AI-driven automation can replace manual tasks leading to workforce redundancies. Whether through chatbots handling customer inquiries or predictive algorithms optimizing supply chains, the pursuit of efficiency and cost savings may result in more tech industry layoffs in the future.

Attitudes to the current political situation in the GDR, future expectations and stand on German-German unification. Topics: Evaluation of personal prospects for the future; stand on remaining in Eastern Germany; reasons against remaining in Eastern Germany (scale); goals in life (scale); expectations of immediate development on the territory of the GDR regarding economic upturn, social security, new jobs, just pay, mass unemployment, equal rights of Germans, willingness to make sacrifices by the citizens of the FRG, wage increase; evaluation of personal prospects for the future in various areas of life (scale); change in the cost of living since currency union; comparison of income and cost of living; evaluation of statements on willingness to work in a different occupation, expenditure of German Marks just for products from the West, demonstrations against the economic policy of the government, strikes for higher wages, wage demands only depending on higher work productivity; attitude to regulation of the right to asylum in the GDR for politically persecuted or economic refugees; personal interest in politics; evaluation of the demand for unity of Germany within the borders of 1937; stand on actions against foreigners; stand on German-German unification and the speed of the unification process; predicted time required until achievement of equivalent living conditions in East and West; participation and party preference in the election for the East German Parliament on 18 Mar. 1990; intended participation and party preference in the election of the state government and the all-German Federal Parliament election; preferred governing party; trust in politicians from East and West (scale); trust in various parties (scale); membership in parties and movements; religiousness; full-time or part-time employment; current job security and prospect of a new job; feeling of being threatened in view of increase in cost of living, crime, aggressiveness and violence, right-wing and left-wing radicalism, drug abuse, increasing egoism, personal unemployment; self-assessment of psychological condition (scale); satisfaction with economic, political and social situations such as housing conditions, standard of living, income, pension, earnings-related unemployment benefit, life all in all; personal identity; evaluation of experiences with the market economy; Supplemental form: possession and intended purchase of a car; age and brand of desired car; maximum expenditure for a car and planned borrowing.

Attitudes to the current political situation in the GDR, future expectations and stand on German-German unification. Topics: Evaluation of personal prospects for the future; stand on remaining in Eastern Germany; reasons against remaining in Eastern Germany (scale); goals in life (scale); expectations of immediate development on the territory of the GDR regarding economic upturn, social security, new jobs, just pay, mass unemployment, equal rights of Germans, willingness to make sacrifices by the citizens of the FRG, wage increase; evaluation of personal prospects for the future in various areas of life (scale); change in the cost of living since currency union; comparison of income and cost of living; evaluation of statements on willingness to work in a different occupation, expenditure of German Marks just for products from the West, demonstrations against the economic policy of the government, strikes for higher wages, wage demands only depending on higher work productivity; attitude to regulation of the right to asylum in the GDR for politically persecuted or economic refugees; personal interest in politics; evaluation of the demand for unity of Germany within the borders of 1937; stand on actions against foreigners; stand on German-German unification and the speed of the unification process; predicted time required until achievement of equivalent living conditions in East and West; participation and party preference in the election for the East German Parliament on 18 Mar. 1990; intended participation and party preference in the election of the state government and the all-German Federal Parliament election; preferred governing party; trust in politicians from East and West (scale); trust in various parties (scale); membership in parties and movements; religiousness; full-time or part-time employment; current job security and prospect of a new job; feeling of being threatened in view of increase in cost of living, crime, aggressiveness and violence, right-wing and left-wing radicalism, drug abuse, increasing egoism, personal unemployment; self-assessment of psychological condition (scale); satisfaction with economic, political and social situations such as housing conditions, standard of living, income, pension, earnings-related unemployment benefit, life all in all; personal identity; evaluation of experiences with the market economy; Supplemental form: possession and intended purchase of a car; age and brand of desired car; maximum expenditure for a car and planned borrowing.

As of January 2024, the tech startup with the most layoffs was Amazon, with over 27 thousand layoffs, across five separate rounds of layoffs. It was followed by Meta and Google with around 21 thousand and 12 thousand job cuts announced respectively.

Layoffs in in the technology industry

Overall, layoffs across all industries began in 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with tech layoffs increasing in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, more than 167 thousand employees had been fired worldwide, a record number of job cuts in a single quarter and more than all of the layoffs announced in 2022 combined, marking a harsh start to of 2023 for the tech sector. From retail to finance and education, all sectors are suffering from this widespread downsizing. However, retail tech startups were hit the most, with almost 29 thousand layoffs announced as of September 2023. Most job losses happened in the United States, where tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google are based.

Reasons behind increasing tech layoffs

Layoffs in the technology sector started with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when entire cities were in lockdown and mobility was restricted. Although restrictions loosened up in 2021, events such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the downturn in Chinese production, and rising inflation had a significant impact on the tech industry and continue to represent major concerns for tech companies. As a consequence, companies across the world have yet to overcome all economic challenges, examples of which are rising material and labor costs, as well as decreasing profit margins. To address such difficulties, tech companies have appointed business plans. For instance, in the United States, tech firms planned to focus more on consumer retention, automating software, and cutting operating expenses.

In January 2021, approximately **** million jobs in Europe's three largest economies were being supported by temporary employment schemes, with the UK's job retention scheme supporting approximately **** million jobs, France's Chômage partiel scheme *** million, while *** million workers were on Germany's Kurzarbeit system. Although some of these partial employment mechanisms were already in place before the COVID-19 pandemic, their usage accelerated considerably after the first Coronavirus lockdowns in Spring 2020. How much will this cost European governments? Early on in the pandemic, European governments moved swiftly to limit the damage that the Coronavirus pandemic would cause to the labor market. The spectre of mass unemployment, which would put a huge strain on European benefit systems anyway, was enough to encourage significant government spending and intervention. To this end, the European Union made 100 billion Euros of loans available through it's unemployment support fund (SURE). As of March 2021, Italy had received ***** billion Euros in loans from the SURE mechanism, and is set to be loaned **** billion Euros overall. Spain and Poland will receive the second and third highest amount from the plan, at **** billion, and ***** billion Euros respectively. What about the UK? The United Kingdom is not involved in the European Union's SURE scheme, but has also paid substantial amounts of money to keep unemployment at bay. As of January 31, 2021, there had been more than **** million jobs furloughed on the UK's job retention scheme. By this date, the expenditure of this measure had reached **** billion British pounds, with this figure expected to increase further, following the extension of the scheme to September 2021.