The Tech Industry's Workforce Crisis: 2024's layoffs surpass 280,000 and continue in 2025

The global tech sector experienced a turbulent year in 2024, with a staggering 280,991 employees losing their jobs as the industry wrestled with economic uncertainty and shifting market demands.

- Alan Cohen.

Over half of these layoffs - 157,950 — were announced by U.S. companies, underscoring the country’s significant role in the ongoing workforce reductions. PC maker Dell led the way by cutting 18,500 positions, followed by Intel and Amazon, each eliminating approximately 15,000 jobs.

These figures reflect a broader trend of downsizing throughout the tech industry, driven by cost-cutting measures and a reassessment of priorities following years of rapid growth. The large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence tools has also been reshaping corporate structures, leading to the elimination of entire teams. The workforce crisis in big tech extends beyond a temporary correction; it has become the norm. This prompted the team at RationalFX to look into the wave of layoffs, researching the number of job cuts that occurred in 2024.

Based on figures from several sources, including TrueUp, TechCrunch, and Layoffs.fyi, we identified the companies that parted ways with a significant portion of their workforce. As the wave of layoffs in the tech industry continues into 2025, we also examined the redundancies since the beginning of the year. More than 10,000 employees in the technology sector have already lost their jobs. With no signs of slowing down, this wave will leave thousands more jobless, affecting not just talented individuals but entire communities currently relying on these (relatively high) salaries.

Considering the world’s largest tech corporations are U.S. companies, it is no wonder that more than half of all tech sector layoffs in 2024 were by U.S.-based businesses. It should also be noted that the most comprehensive data sources for job cuts are also based in the United States and are oriented towards mostly American and English-speaking audiences. The mass layoffs in countries such as China are also rarely covered by Western media as the information is difficult to confirm.