New round of layoffs axes 100s of positions

Twilio, SAP America among latest to chop local tech workers

PALO ALTO >> Tech companies have revealed plans to erase about 400 more jobs in the Bay Area in a fresh wave of layoffs, as sketched out in a grim new set of official reports to the state's labor agency.

SAP America, Twilio and ContextLogic are among the tech companies that have posted newly disclosed intentions to trim their workforces in a big way.

The layoffs will affect tech workers in Palo Alto, San Francisco and San Ramon, the new filings with the state Employment Development Department (EDD) show.

All told, the three companies have reported their decision to chop a combined 430 jobs, according to the WARN notices to EDD officials.

Here are the details for some of the most recent layoffs filed with the EDD that will trigger Bay Area tech job cuts:

• SAP is cutting 224 jobs. These include a loss of 159 jobs in Palo Alto and 65 jobs in San Ramon.

• Twilio is eliminating 159 jobs in San Francisco.

• ContextLogic is chopping 47 jobs in San Francisco.

SAP's cutbacks are affecting sites where the company has significant numbers of software employees.

Several years ago, SAP launched a high-profile innovation and research center in San Ramon in an effort to tap tech talent from the East Bay and San Joaquin Valley.

Twilio, SAP and ContextLogic all described their job cuts as permanent layoffs.

These are the tech or biotech companies with the 10-largest layoff events affecting workers in the Bay Area, ranked by the number of job cuts that they have reported to the EDD:

• Meta Platforms (Facebook owner), 2,564 layoffs in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Fremont, Sunnyvale and Burlingame

• Google, 1,608 job cuts in Mountain View, Moffett Field, San Bruno and Palo Alto

• Salesforce, 1,010 terminations in San Francisco

• Cepheid, 925 layoffs in Newark and Sunnyvale

• Twitter, 900 job cuts in San Francisco and San Jose

• Invitae, 736 terminations in San Francisco

• Cisco Systems, 673 job cuts in San Jose, Milpitas and San Francisco

• Grocery Delivery E-Services USA (HelloFresh), 611 layoffs in Richmond

• Amazon, 524 job cuts in Sunnyvale and San Francisco

• Lam Research, 400 terminations in Fremont and Livermore

Despite the ongoing waves of job cuts, the current problem is nowhere close to the level of the dotcom meltdown of the early 2000s, according to Russell Hancock, president of San Jose-based Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a think tank.

“The pandemic was a bonanza for tech,” Hancock said. “During COVID, tech scaled up hiring enormously. Now, tech has new demand curves. They have to recalibrate and reduce their workforces.”