Daily Mail

Tech jobs bloodbath rockets to 200,000

- By Leah Montebello

THE total number of tech layoffs has reached over 200,000 in the past year as Google added to the Silicon Valley bloodbath.

Since the start of 2022, around 210,000 positions have been slashed, with around 55,000 in the last two weeks alone, according to jobs data firm Layoffs.fyi.

Google parent firm Alphabet’s cuts yesterday swelled the already spiralling numbers, adding 12,000 jobs, or roughly 6pc of the global workforce, to that layoff list.

‘Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,’ Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai told employees.

‘To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. I take full responsibi­lity for the decisions that led us here.’

Pichai’s fellow tech bosses have also made hefty cuts to their workforces in recent months.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter all made major reductions to their workforce at the end of last year, citing squeezed advertisin­g spend and revenue slowdowns as the key drivers.

This month alone, Amazon, Microsoft and software giant Salesforce have significan­tly culled their global headcount, showing how this trend shows no signs of slowing.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactiv­e Investor, said: ‘Silicon Valley’s sense of invincibil­ity spurred a period of overzealou­s expansion during the era of rock-bottom interest rates.

‘But the tech sector was swiftly brought back down to earth in 2022 on the back of rising inflation and interest rates, the fading technologi­cal boom during the pandemic-era when most of us were glued to our devices, and a slowing global economic backdrop.’

IPhone maker Apple is the one tech outlier that is yet to announce any major job cuts.

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