So far February appears to be the worst month in the last six months for tech professionals considering the spate of layoffs in the tech sector, it has galloped to new heights during February.
Layoffs Sky Rocketed In February
And why not as the big names such as
Meta, HP, and Workday axe a massive chunk of their workforce.
In total, 46 companies laid off 15,994 employees in February, as per the information provided by the layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi.
Compared to January, layoffs have surged in February indicating a staggering 184 percent increase in the number of affected employees.
Prior to this, 25 companies were reported to have fired 5641 of their employees last month.
How Did This Happen?
This all started with Meta as the news came about it conducting layoffs that could impact around 5 per cent of its workforce, which is about 3,600 employees.
The company has described them as ‘performance-based cuts,’ beginning February 10 with notifications planned to be delivered throughout the following week.
If you are wondering the reasons behind it, Increasing adoption of AI solutions along with economic uncertainty are among the key reasons for these job cuts.
Before this, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had informed his staff that he planned to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster in January.
He said, “We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, Now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle,” in an internal memo.
Although, following the announcement, some employees with strong performance reviews were also affected.
By the end of February, tech giant HP announced that it was going to cut up to 2,000 jobs as part of its ongoing restructuring plan on February 27.
So far, the company has a strength of around 58,000 workers across 59 countries.
With these job cuts, the company is hoping to save about $300 million by the end of October 2025.
Besides these companies, Meta and HP, companies like Salesforce, Workday, and Autodesk have also done job cuts and removed a sizable chunk of their workforce.
