Tech and biotech firms launch fresh rounds of layoffs, job cuts widen
Tech and biotech companies have begun to reveal plans for multiple rounds of job cuts in the Bay Area, disquieting disclosures that suggest the current surges of layoffs have yet to run their course.
The unsettling trend came to light after Microsoft’s report that it had decided to cut 62 jobs in Mountain View, layoffs that were effective on Feb. 9 and marked the second time that the tech titan filed layoff notices with the state’s labor agency.
Since July 2022, at least eight tech or biotech companies have notified the state Employment Development Department of plans for multiple layoff rounds.
Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, Twitter, Salesforce, PayPal, RingCentral and Zymergen have all filed WARN notices that reflect at least two distinct rounds of layoffs.
These eight companies all filed their WARN notices on or after Nov. 1 of 2022. Six of the eight companies filed disclosures of planned job cuts this year, a review of the WARN notices shows.
Here are the number of employees the eight companies with at least two rounds of job cuts have decided to lay off in the Bay Area:
- Salesforce, 1,010 in San Francisco
- Twitter, 900 in San Francisco and San Jose
- Amazon, 524 in Sunnyvale and San Francisco
- PayPal, 378 in San Jose
- Intel, 378 in Santa Clara
- Microsoft, 108 in Mountain View and Santa Clara (107 were in Mountain View)
- RingCentral, 100 in Belmont
- Zymergen, 293 in Emeryville
Seven of the companies filed two rounds of WARN notices. Zymergen was the only one of the seven with more than two rounds. The biotech firm has filed four different sets of WARN letters, with the earliest in late July and the most recent in mid-January.
As of Feb. 9, these were the 10 most recent WARN notices that tech or biotech companies filed to disclose job cuts in the Bay Area. The list also shows the number of jobs affected in the most recent round of cutbacks:
- Lam Research, 400 job cuts in Fremont and in Livermore
- Mindspring Health Services, 128 layoffs in Menlo Park
- Splunk, 174 staffing cuts in San Francisco and San Jose
- Autodesk, 61 job cuts in San Francisco
- Salesforce, 258 staffing cuts in San Francisco
- NetApp, 148 layoffs in San Jose
- Workday, 196 job cuts in Pleasanton
- Pinterest, 49 staffing cuts in San Francisco
- eBay, 185 layoffs in San Jose
- Microsoft, 62 job cuts in Mountain View
Starting in mid-2022, tech and biotech companies have filed plans that to erase well over 19,000 jobs in the Bay Area, with no indication that the job cuts have begun to abate.