After speaking with friends at Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon across London, Bangalore, and Seattle, here are the hard truths about the current job market:
Job security in Big Tech is a thing of the past. The days when working for top tech companies meant long-term stability are over.
AI is reshaping the workforce. Automation and AI-driven tools are boosting efficiency across organizations, making several roles redundant.
Mid-career professionals face the biggest challenge. People in their late 30s and early 40s are at a crossroads, too senior for entry-level jobs but not yet in executive roles, leaving them particularly vulnerable.
The layoffs have just begun. Companies are not only letting people go but also permanently eliminating roles, with no plans to rehire.
Amazon’s workforce reductions are more aggressive. While the company used to trim around around 7-8% of employees annually due to performance reviews, that number has now surged into double digits.
Companies are prioritizing cost-cutting over compassion. Layoffs are being carried out with ruthless efficiency, with little regard for employee well-being.
India's job market is relatively more stable. While global tech hubs like London, the Bay Area, and Dubai are seeing severe slowdowns, India’s employment landscape remains slightly more resilient.
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In the past when companies do the layoffs, they were criticized about it, now the whole narrative is changed, they will not only lay you off but tell the whole word you are not good performer. So many excellent engineers were laid off this year, there is an invisible recession going on which will not be talked in main stream media. In the past when companies lay off people after certain time they realize they need people so they hire them back, but this time it is changed. Company will not hire you back they will spend money on AI agents rather than getting engineers. The tech is changed and it’s not going to be good for majority of people!
Just saw a stat on CNBC stating there have been 210k tech workers laid off in 2022 with more to come in 2023.
To be really fair, I had no idea it was that high. While many may argue the economy is not in a recession, the tech industry definitely is.
Note: The validity of this data is extremely dependent on the industry within tech that is being looked at. Some industries within tech are doing well, while others are laying off left and right.
Jun 24, 2025
"Over the past eighteen months, more than 170,000 U.S. tech workers lost their jobs, with layoffs rising 35% in early 2025. Programming roles shrank by 27% between 2022 and 2024, while average tech salaries dropped over 12%.
Many displaced workers moved to smaller tech firms, finance, consulting, healthcare, or logistics, while others pursued freelancing, entrepreneurship, or public sector roles, especially cybersecurity. Reskilling in AI and advanced tech skills has surged.
However, entry-level hiring declined sharply, creating a divide between established professionals and newcomers. This situation demands stronger reskilling, hiring incentives, and labor mobility support across industries."
Hi, I want to know how long it took you to find another job, given a "strong" resume (worked for bigtech lol). Did you make a career shift?
Has anyone affected by the latest tech layoffs?
Will the tech layoffs continue until end of 2023(caused by recession)?
Thank you to everyone who commented and gave advice on my last post. I’m here to give an update. It’s really barely an update. It’s just to say that I had the meeting yesterday. They said pretty much we’re in limbo. Earliest update comes in anywhere from a week to a couple of weeks but seems like a hard stop in July/August.
To the peeps that were talking about WARN, it seems like companies are able to get around reporting to WARN by doing small batches of layoffs. If they don’t hit a certain threshold per batch they don’t have to report it. Or at least that’s what I came to the conclusion of after this meeting. I’m 99.99% sure we are all going to be laid off. There seems to be no hope, which really sucks. This was a really good company by most definitions.
I guess my next question for advice is for specifically people in tech, how are things looking right now? It seems a lot of places are going under. Does anyone have a general idea as to why? I know why this one is going under but I’m looking to know why so many other people in tech are being laid off right now. It makes it daunting to think about trying to get another job in tech just from the fact of competition and job security. Also are there specific types of companies in tech or job positions that seem the most likely to stick around longer?
I'm hearing that everyone from Meta to Snap to Netflix is cutting jobs, but I don't hear anything about mass layoffs in any other sector of the economy. Is there a reason why tech specifically is down so bad?
Microsoft is the latest example:
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/microsoft-layoffs-latest-tech-firm-cuts
Answer: a lot of big tech companies make their money through digital advertising. While some sectors of the economy, like hospitality, are still growing, lots of businesses are cutting their advertising spend due to fears of a coming recession.
Also, many of these tech companies grew incredibly fast during the pandemic because their employees could work remotely and because there was heavy demand for their online services (advertising, entertainment, shopping, etc). Demand for those services has pulled back now that people are out and about again and because of the fear of a coming recession.
This has led most of these companies to quietly admit that they overexpanded and need to shrink or at least slow hiring to right-size.
Answer: Like all layoffs to cut costs. Most tech companies see their active customer base shrinking. During two years of covid people were mostly home with online being their only source of entertainment. Now the world has openend up once more, people don't spend as much time on Netflix or Facebook anymore. As a result these companies see their incomes stagnate or even shrink, so they fire people to lower their operating costs.
It seems like half of my friends have been laid off from their roles as senior software developers or IT managers. When I ask them about it, they all say that work didn't seem any slower than before. The company I work at can't keep up with demand and is hiring like crazy. Why are so many tech companies doing mass layoffs? It doesn't seem like their profits are decreasing.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-the-us-these-are-the-companies-making-cuts-2022-5
Title. Do we just resort to working at grocery stores or something?
Edit. The line above this is a joke. The question is if this wave continues, how would we and / or how did people who experienced something like this (e.g. circa 2008) move forward?
Edit 2: Meta is having a hiring freeze, not layoffs. As it apparently wasn't clear enough, my intent was to get advice in case this does happen to me and to have a discussion, not spread fear as some have commented below.
This is a redux of the dot com bust. I’ve been preaching that most of tech outside of the Big 5 - FAANG - Netflix + Microsoft - and the 2nd tier profitable tech companies (Oracle, IBM, VMWare, SalesForce, Nvidia, Intel, etc) were in for a rude awakening when the stock market corrected.
The money losing startups and public former unicorns that recently IPOd always had bad business models.
Netflix is struggling because their one technological advantage - their streaming tech - is a commodity. Any company can throw money at a company like BAMTech and have a decent streaming platform. Netflix’s content is sub par compared to the other streaming platforms and no one cares about their characters. They don’t have any franchises that people care about They also can’t compete in spending money on content like Disney, Apple, WarnerBros, Viacom (Paramount) and Amazon.
Does the company you work for have a real profitable business model? Then you should be fine. Yes I know AMZN is shitting bricks right now.
I was around for the Great Recession and dodged layoffs because I was young and cheaper than the senior engineers.
Game plan - pretend you got laid off tomorrow, what’s your plan? Do you have recruiters or a network to reach out to?
Are you logged into anything on your work computer that you shouldn’t be? Can you remotely log out of all your personal accounts?
Severance is negotiable. You can ask for more. They can say no. The two times I was laid off I was able to get one more week of pay than originally offered. Ask your manager if they’re willing to be a good reference or if they know of anyone who is hiring, assuming you have a good relationship.
Keep your resume updated
Looking for work isn’t a full time job but being unemployed should be. Come up with a routine. Go to the gym or do something else fulfilling.
Edit: Apologies for forgetting, but this is a big one. You should absolutely know how long your runway is and how you can extend it. Can you go a year without a paycheck? If not, how long? What expenses can you cut out? You don’t have to live like a monk, but if canceling all your steaming services and eating ramen means that you can pay rent for 6 months instead of 5, then do it. You can always re-activate everything when you get a job offer.
Edit 2: Apply for unemployment