Tech industry layoffs are reportedly happening faster than at any time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal reported about the trend Tuesday citing data from Layoffs.fyi, a website launched by San Francisco internet entrepreneur Roger Lee to track layoff events as they surface in media reports and company releases.
Technology-driven companies across industries cut more than 150,000 jobs in 2022, according to the tracker. That compares with the estimated 80,000 layoffs in March-December 2020 and 15,000 in all of 2021.
The 2022 figure includes job slashings by Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., which announced more than 11,000 layoffs in November alone, as well as some 10,000 possibly job cuts by Amazon.
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Despite layoffs drastically slowing in 2021, tech companies in 2022 began to rapidly cut positions once again amid rising interest rates and a slowing economy. Consumer and retail-based companies in the tech sector were some the hardest hit, according to the Journal.
The online tracker counted nearly 100 healthcare-related tech companies terminated an estimated 11,000 employees in 2022. While education tech companies rapidly grew amid the onset of online learning and school shutdowns in 2020, companies in the same sector in 2022 cut more than 8,000 jobs.
With the lockdowns and travel restrictions of 2020 came massive layoffs for travel-related tech industries in 2020. However, as the world reopened and travel resumed, travel companies in the tech sector were among the areas the least impacted by layoffs in 2022.
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For some tech companies that saw quick revenue and share value growth in 2020 as workforces sought solutions to suddenly going remote, hiring for those tech companies also increased. However, some CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey, have since apologized for growing their payrolls too quickly after having to implement hiring freezes.