January has brought little comfort to the Bay Area tech sector, as layoffs announced last fall at Meta, Twitter and other South Bay companies were followed by additional cuts over the past week impacting hundreds of local workers. The latest news from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon indicates that what some hoped was a short correction may be evolving into a deeper and more widespread trend.
Last week Microsoft confirmed plans to reduce 10,000 roles from its global workforce. Google and its parent company Alphabet followed with an announcement that it will eliminate 12,000 jobs globally. A decision Amazon announced at the beginning of the year to lay off 18,000 workers moved one step closer to reality when the company confirmed its plans with regulators at the State of California.
These companies’ global workforce reductions have real implications for Bay Area-based tech employees concerned they may still find themselves without a job. Amazon confirmed that its latest cuts include the elimination of 104 roles in San Francisco and 157 in Sunnyvale. Microsoft’s layoff will impact 37 workers in Mountain View and Santa Clara. Google and its parent company indicated that it would be eliminating 1,436 employees from Mountain View, 53 in Palo Alto, and 119 at YouTube’s division headquarters in San Bruno. Other Bay Area-based tech companies like Salesforce, Cisco, and Oracle have also announced cuts that will impact roles in their locations around the region.
While these cuts may portend future challenges for the economy, there are some bright patches on the horizon. San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties’ unemployment rates both fell to 2% before the end of last year. And in December, the Bay Area added 13,600 jobs – 4,300 of those in the tech industry, according to reports.