In November, Apple laid off dozens of sales employees in a move quite unexpected for the tech giant. Apple is one of the few tech companies that has stayed away from mass layoffs, particularly among its peers in the trillion-dollar club. The layoffs “came a surprise” to those who lost their jobs, according to a Bloomberg report, and affected some employees who had been with the company for decades.
The post-pandemic job market has come to be defined by layoffs, in tech and beyond: A Glassdoor analysis finds there was a peak in 2023, but since then layoffs have continued at a more frequent cadence compared to previous years. A variety of sectors have been severely affected, and prominent employers such as Verizon, Starbucks, and UPS have gone through multiple rounds of cuts this year alone, eliminating thousands of jobs.
But the tech industry has relied solely on layoffs as companies have gone through periods of overhiring and fluctuating priorities, and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the sector.
Since 2022, tech employers have laid off more than 700,000 workers, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi. With the exception of Apple, which has made a handful of more targeted cuts in recent years, big tech companies (namely Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft) have laid off tens of thousands of employees in the last three years.
“There are so many new graduates trying to break into the tech industry and they feel like the promise of a high-paying job in tech just isn’t being fulfilled,” says Daniel Zhao, chief economist and director of economic research at Glassdoor.
All of this has created a challenging environment for tech workers looking for new jobs and for new graduates trying to find their place. Over the past two decades, Big Tech jobs held a certain prestige for millennial knowledge workers who were just beginning their careers. Sprawling campuses and free food were attractive, of course, but companies like Google also imbued their work with purpose and seemed to guarantee professional success.
But as layoffs have hit the industry, it appears that the tech jobs once hailed as stable and desirable are no longer a safe bet for workers.
“Unfortunately, layoffs are no longer a response of last resort,” says Brett Coakley, chief executive advisor at career consulting firm Close Cohen. “They’ve become more of an annual planning tool. These workers who thought they were insulated are realizing that prestige doesn’t really give them the protection they’re used to.”
The dream job has changed
For years, these tech companies have promised generous salaries and job security along with generous benefits. However, between recurring layoffs and strict return-to-office policies, something seems to have changed, and it’s not just that benefits have dried up.
Many large tech employers hired aggressively during the pandemic, only to backtrack and lay off workers soon after. Companies like Amazon forced employees to return to the office five days a week and, in some cases, required them to move.
The rise of generative AI is also radically reshaping technology companies, with many making multibillion-dollar investments and courting top talent. Computer science graduates are finding it harder to get entry-level jobs, in part because those roles are constantly becoming automated. Some companies, like Salesforce, have already replaced certain employees with AI, while others have warned that job losses are looming and that employees should seize the moment and embrace AI technology. Mark Zuckerberg noted earlier this year that AI could supplant mid-level engineers at Meta, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said that employees who “get familiar with AI” will be “high impact” and “help us reinvent the company.”
(Whether AI will actually eliminate jobs at a rapid pace is beside the point, although companies seem reluctant to mention the other issues driving their business problems, including immigration policy and tariffs.)
The result is that workers have become more reluctant to bet their careers on a Big Tech job, Coakley says.
“We see that people who are just starting their career have the same symptom,” he says. “‘Why should I do this thing that’s not stable? I can do a niche role or I can do something that’s a little more skill-based.’ Or, ‘Why do I need to go to a four-year college to get this degree if I’m not going to get a job?’ “We are getting a lot of that feeling.” Some workers who are in the early stages of their careers are looking for smaller companies or trying to beef up their AI skills for when the pendulum inevitably swings back and big tech companies start hiring again, according to Coakley.
Zhao noted that high-paying work in technology still has its appeal, although it feels increasingly out of reach for some new entrants to the industry. The number of workers who have been unemployed for more than six months has increased as hiring has slowed, and college-educated workers now make up a larger share of them.
“These big tech companies are still very attractive jobs,” Zhao says. “If you ask any recent graduate, ‘Do you want to work at Google?’ I think most of them would still say yes. “It’s just a matter of how to get your foot in the door.”
What this means for tech workers old and new
It’s not just people early in their careers who are re-evaluating where they want to work. The current climate has revealed that tenure and seniority will not necessarily preserve your job, especially when companies look for AI talent. For older employees who built their careers at big tech companies, the unease permeating the tech sector has raised questions about how long they can expect to stay in their jobs.
“At the beginning of the year, a lot of people came to us after a layoff,” Coakley says. “So they didn’t see it coming or they didn’t expect it. [Now] I’ve started to see a lot of that other end of the spectrum, where people are proactive and say, ‘I don’t know if this will be here for me in six months.'”
Experts often say that layoffs have a clear effect on company culture, and Glassdoor analysis supports this idea: Glassdoor review volume increases by more than 40% in the week following a layoff, and are still referenced in reviews months later. Zhao notes that some companies seek to avoid the negative attention and press coverage that accompanies a mass layoff by making smaller, more frequent cuts.
But tech workers can still see what’s happening, and Coakley says some of them are taking preventative measures to blaze a new trail.
“The middle and higher level [employee] “They’ve really built their identities within a corporation,” he says. “They’ve lived inside that Big Tech bubble, but now that the bubble is thinning, they’re wondering: Who am I outside of this company?” Coakley has found that some senior employees are now interested in fractional roles or startups that offer greater work-life balance.
“People are realizing that they have depended on corporations for their stability,” he says, “and that is no longer viable.”
Amid a tough hiring market, even workers who have soured on their Big Tech jobs may be afraid to take drastic action. But that could change when the market finally turns, to the detriment of these employers.
“If we see the balance of power shifting back toward employees and away from employers, a lot of things can change,” Zhao says. “And to some extent, that’s a risk that employers should pay attention to as well.”
The culture of Big Tech may have changed, but workers have changed accordingly, increasingly emboldened by the upheaval of the past five years and the realization that their employers are no different from their peers across corporate America.
“I think the fact that workers feel so stuck right now,” Zhao says, “means that once the labor market opens up again, all those workers will hit the streets.”