U.S. tech firms begin second rounds of layoffs amid cost-cutting efforts

U.S. tech giants have launched second rounds of layoffs following large-scale streamlining earlier this year.

Reuters reported Wednesday (local time) that LinkedIn, the professional social networking platform owned by Microsoft Corp., has plans to cut about 670 jobs, or roughly 3 percent of its entire workforce, due to the shrinking labor market, one of the company’s revenue sources.

It is the company’s second round of layoffs following a reduction of 700 jobs in May.

Coding community Stack Overflow also recently announced a cut of about 100 employees, or 28 percent of its staff, in the wake of diminishing demand for its services as artificial intelligence (AI) models, like ChatGPT, are rapidly growing as a tool for software engineers.

Waymo LLC, an autonomous driving technology company, has laid off some employees in its third round of job cuts this year, according to The Information, a tech-focused publication.

The company has found it challenging to expand its self-driving tax segment due to regulations, it said.

Qualcomm Inc., one of the world’s largest fabless semiconductor companies, also recently announced a plan to scale back its workforce, involving a job cut of 1,200 employees.

The layoff comes at a time when the fabless industry is suffering sagging demand in the sluggish Android smartphone market.

U.S. tech firms have laid off a total of 240,000 employees throughout this year, according to sources.

Most of the reductions were from tech giants, such as Google LLC and Amazon.com Inc. Starting from October, smaller firms, such as Stitch Fix and Qualtrics, scaled back their workforce.

Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said in her interview with The Verge that a series of massive layoffs in Silicon Valley has made it slower for tech firms to witness recovery in employment.

Some market insiders said the recent rounds of layoffs were more reasonable compared with the previous job reduction early this year, while expecting the chances of additional layoffs to be low.

However, with more tech firms trying to reduce costs, there has been a decrease in investments in high salaries and perks, both of which are essential to attract skillful talent.