Economic uncertainty, high interest rates, and the accelerating shift toward automation and artificial intelligence continue to drive mass layoffs across the tech sector. It’s not just individuals being made redundant; entire roles that were once deemed essential are disappearing from the workforce.
In response to this trend, the team at RationalFX investigated the wave of layoffs, analysing the number of job cuts that have occurred so far in 2025. Based on figures from several sources, including TrueUp, TechCrunch, and multiple state WARN databases, we identified the companies with the most significant workforce reductions. So far in 2025, more than 130 thousand people have been laid off in the global tech sector, and if the trend continues at the same rate, this number will exceed 242,000 by the end of the year.
American companies, in particular, seem to double down on downsizing and cost-cutting efforts, letting go of more than 96 thousand employees, not just in the United States but in their offshore offices and manufacturing plants. The company slashing the most jobs so far in 2025 is Intel, which had close to 109 thousand employees at the end of 2024 and, by the end of this year, plans to reduce headcount to 75,000, according to Reuters.
With the biggest tech hub in the world being located in the US, it is no wonder that the vast majority of layoffs in 2025 are reported by American companies. Currently, US-based company job cuts account for 69.4% of the 138,978 reported across the globe. Along with Intel, which has been reducing its headcount since last year, another tech giant to plan mass cuts is Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest information technology and services company. With its planned 12,000 reductions, India’s total layoffs exceed 15,000. Panasonic’s recent 4% workforce reduction, affecting 10,000 jobs, has pushed Japan to third place. The Japanese technology conglomerate’s latest layoffs aim to boost profitability and streamline operations.
Switzerland, despite not being among the largest technology hubs in the world, is also one of the countries where some of this year’s most notable mass layoffs are taking place. STMicroelectronics, one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, announced in January it would be letting go of around 3,000 employees. In June, the Plan-les-Ouates-based company said it planned to reduce its workforce by 5,000 over a three-year period. The tech industry in Sweden has also suffered a blow in 2025, with more than 3,000 people losing their jobs as a result of the recent bankruptcy of battery manufacturer Northvolt. Other countries where tech roles have been slashed in the thousands include Indonesia, Israel and the UK.
Tech Companies Boost Profits While Trimming Global Workforces
Over the past few years, Microsoft’s revenue has continued to grow steadily, as reflected in its 2025 quarterly financial results. The company reported $70.1 billion in revenue for the three months ending March 31, a 13% year-over-year increase, and a net income of $25.8 billion, up almost 18%. Despite its strong financial performance, the U.S. tech giant is also leading a wave of layoffs, not even sparing management and senior positions in the company.
Since the beginning of 2025, Microsoft has laid off more than 19 thousand employees across various divisions and departments. This includes a limited number of performance-based layoffs in January, reductions in Xbox, as well as another 6,000 job cuts announced in May. In its latest round of layoffs, the company said it would further reduce headcount, eliminating various management positions across different teams and geographies.
Another U.S.-based tech giant laying off employees this year is Meta, despite positive financial results for 2024 and the strong performance, reported for the first quarter of this year. The company reported a 16% year-over-year increase in sales, with net income climbing to $16.64 billion, up from $12.37 billion in the previous quarter. Despite this, Meta has already laid off at least 3,720 employees since the start of the year, while pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence. In June, it spent $14.3 billion in Scale AI and acquired a 49% stake in the AI training data startup. Meanwhile, Scale AI laid off roughly 200 employees or 14% of its staff; its founder and CEO Alexandr Wang, however, joined Meta as the head of the new Superintelligence Labs.
Many tech companies are cutting data-centric roles as they shift their focus toward cloud and AI-related positions. Education technology firm Chegg announced earlier this year it is laying off 248 employees, about 22% of its workforce, after making significant investments in its AI-powered learning assistant, which was built using OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Manufacturing Giants Lead in Tech Layoffs in 2025
Following last year’s 15,000 layoffs, it seems that Santa Clara-based semiconductor and computer components manufacturer Intel is doubling down on cutting jobs as a means to reduce some costs. Initially, the company announced that it will be reducing its workforce by a whopping 20% by the end of the year. The news came after a new CEO took over, while the company’s financial woes continued into 2025, when it reported a net loss of $821 million for Q1 and another $2.9 billion in losses for Q2.
From 108,900 employees at the end of 2024, the total headcount is planned to come down to around 75,000 by the end of this year, according to official announcements. This means that in 2025 alone, Intel is laying off roughly 31% of its workforce or 33,900 employees.
Microsoft has also initiated mass layoffs this year, with the recent layoffs of more than 9,000 individuals described by CEO Satya Nadella as “necessary” for the AI transformation the company is envisioning. July’s announcement of job reductions is just the latest round of layoffs for the tech giant, which is expected to have let go of roughly 19 thousand employees by the end of the year.
India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services, is among the tech giants announcing workforce reductions in July. The company, which is part of the massive business conglomerate Tata Group, said it would be cutting 12,000 jobs, mostly middle and senior-level positions. The move, which will affect roughly 2% of the company’s workforce until April 2026, is not just a result of AI implementation, according to TCS CEO K. Krithivasan; it is part of a larger transformation, aimed at making the company more “agile” and ready for the new technologies that are being constantly developed in the sector. Similarly to many others, TCS needs employees with a different set of skills, skills that were not needed just a couple of years ago.
Panasonic announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide as part of efforts to reduce costs and boost profit margins. Microsoft, on the other hand, has announced workforce reductions on two separate occasions in 2025. The first round targeted about 1% of its employees, around 2,000 people, based on performance. Later, the company revealed a second wave of layoffs affecting approximately 6,840 employees, representing roughly 3% of its total workforce.
Social media platform and communication company Meta has reduced the size of its workforce numerous times throughout 2025. The latest wave of layoffs sacked 100 employees across Reality Labs, the company’s augmented and virtual reality unit. In total, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has laid off at least 3,720 jobs cut since the beginning of the year.
Semiconductor manufacturing and design company STMicroelectronics initially announced plans to lay off 3,000 workers by 2027, but the number later climbed to 5,000. The company’s 2024 annual report reveals that they employ 11,500 in France and 12,700 in Italy. The Italian and French governments own a combined 27.5% share of STMicroelectronics, and there is currently a heavy push from both governments towards limiting the number of layoffs to 1,000 in Rome and the same amount in France. It is unclear how many will be laid off this year but media reports estimate that between 2,000 and 5,000 employees can lose their jobs.
Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt had long been struggling financially until in March, it was forced to file for bankruptcy and seize operations. With most battery production centred in China, Japan, and South Korea, Northvolt was founded as Europe’s answer to reducing its dependence on suppliers from other continents. However, following its collapse, at least 3,000 employees were said to be left jobless, including at Northvolt’s massive factory in Skellefteå. Now, the company has found several bidders and at least one serious take-over offer, while the 3,000 former employees were notified they could be asked to return.
California & Silicon Valley: A Tech Hub & Center of Job Cuts
As expected from the state’s high concentration of technological companies, California has spearheaded layoffs in the U.S. tech sector this year, with 53,295 job cuts. These account for 55% of all tech layoffs in the country. Companies headquartered in California with the biggest layoffs in 2025 include Intel, Meta, HP, Workday, Autodesk, Cruise, and Salesforce.
Washington State, another major hub for technology companies, has seen 24,789 tech jobs cut since the start of the year, accounting for 25.6% of all tech layoffs in the U.S. The biggest layoffs in the state of Washington happened at Microsoft, Amazon, Blue Origin, Redfin, and Expedia.
Over in Texas, there have been at least 5,359 job cuts from eleven different tech companies this year. Among them are Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Indeed, CrowdStrike, Match Group, and Bumble. Unlike California and Washington State, where the most tech sector layoffs are concentrated (80.83% of all), layoffs in the Lone Star State account for just 5.55% of the total number in the US.
Massachusetts ranks fourth with 2,532 out of the 96,464 job cuts in the US. The companies with the most layoffs for the state are the following: Wayfair (1,070), Brightcove (450), Symbotic (400), and Tripadvisor (150). Boston has the most layoffs, with five out of the ten companies headquartered in the city.
The Current State of the Tech Industry in 2025
The tech sector was hit hardest in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly a million jobs lost since 2021. In 2025, the ongoing wave of mass layoffs appears to be driven by automation, AI-driven job displacement, and broader cost-cutting strategies. While roles easily replaced by automation were the first to go, Microsoft’s previous round of layoffs of 6,000 employees, including a prominent AI director for the company, show that even senior positions are no longer secure.
Hiring managers are placing greater emphasis on AI development as a core skill when evaluating candidates. Historically, when jobs have been at risk, companies have often turned to reskilling their workforce to help mitigate the impact of potential layoffs. Some executives such as TCS’s K. Krithivasan, however, says that redeployment and finding new positions for current employees just to avoid layoffs does not work. Only time will tell if tech companies will continue to focus on cost-cutting and downsizing through 2025, or if advancements in AI will lead to the creation of new roles and opportunities in the technology market.
Between January 1 and July 27 of 2025, more than 138,000 employees were laid off in the technology sector. We estimate that every day, 665 workers have lost their jobs on average since the start of the year, and at this pace, the tech industry is set to let go of another 103,735 people by the end of the year. If the trend progresses, calculations show that the total number of tech sector layoffs in 2025 would reach 242,713.
Methodology
For this report, the team at RationalFX examined all of the reported tech company layoffs since the beginning of 2025, sourced from the IT job portal TrueUp.io. We also searched through additional sources, including TechCrunch, Layoffs.fyi, and several WARN databases. These are publicly available announcements providing advance notice in cases of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs as required by the U.S. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
Layoff figures were first aggregated at the company level to determine the total job cuts per firm. Next, companies were classified by their country of headquarters, providing insight into the geographic distribution of layoffs. To highlight the most significant workforce reductions, firms were ranked by the number of jobs eliminated, while countries were ranked based on the total layoffs reported by companies operating within them.