Tech sector’s job losses continued in August 2024, where more than 40 companies announced 27,000 lay-offs. This latest round of cuts has pushed the total number of tech lay-offs for the year to over 136,000 across 422 companies and shows no sign of letting up.
Leading these cuts is Intel which recently announced that it plans to cut 15,000 employees which is about 15% of its employees. This is in line with the company’s $10 billion spending cut plan for 2025 due to high costs and low margins even though the company has been a pioneer in CPU chip technology. Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s CEO, said that these financial problems caused the revenue growth to be less than expected, although the company has hired 10% more employees between 2020 and 2023.
Telecommunications equipment maker Cisco Systems said it will reduce its workforce by about 6,000 employees, or 7 percent of its workers internationally. This move is meant to shift the company’s focus to areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity which are considered to be growth markets. Chuck Robbins, Cisco’s CEO, said that he expects demand for the company’s networking equipment to recover.
IBM is another big name on the list, company decided to halt its research and development in China which led to more than a thousand employees being laid off. IBM will focus on catering for the private enterprises and a few selected multinational companies in the Chinese market.
Other companies that have resorted to cutting include the German chipmaker Infineon that is planning to sack 1,400 employees and transfer another 1,400 to lower cost regions due to market conditions and slow economic activity. GoPro has cut its workforce by 15% or around 140 people while Apple has dismissed about 100 of its workers most of whom are from the services division.
Dell Technologies has been in the news for restructuring its sales teams, and while the actual details are still unclear, there are rumours of massive let go. Even small companies such as ReshaMandi, a Bengaluru-based fabric firm, are affected, with claims of mass lay-offs of the entire workforce. Brave, the web browser company, has announced that it is laying off 27 employees and ShareChat, a social media firm, is letting go of 5% of its employees.
These lay-offs underscore the broader trends driving the tech industry's restructuring efforts, including cost-cutting measures, strategic shifts towards emerging technologies like AI, and adjustments to post-pandemic market conditions.
