CHART: A deep-dive into layoffs in the tech industry in 2025
Tech is still innovating, still raising money, still building the future. But beneath that glossy surface, the workforce is being redrawn.
If you’ve been working in tech or even just watching from the sidelines, you’ve probably felt it, the sense that 2025 has quietly, steadily turned into another heavy year for layoffs. And by May, it wasn’t quiet anymore.
It started slowly, almost predictably, but by mid-May, tech companies had laid off more than 61,000 employees globally, according to independent tracker Layoffs.fyi. What began as scattered job cuts in Q1 has grown into a steady purge one that’s hitting deeper as the months go by.
The early moves came from familiar places. In February, Meta cut 3,600 jobs, citing a renewed focus on performance and productivity. That same month, HP filed notice that it would lay off between 1,000 and 2,000 employees before the end of its fiscal year, aiming to cut costs by $300 million. Microchip Technology, another major player, announced 2,000 layoffs across the U.S. and the Philippines, tied to a manufacturing scale-back.
One of the most dramatic moves came from Intel, which announced plans to lay off 21,000 employees — nearly 20% of its workforce. It’s one of the most aggressive downsizing moves in recent memory, especially since the company had already cut 15,000 jobs the previous August. It comes as new CEO Lip-Bu Tan tries to reboot a company that’s been sliding for years, stripping down layers of management, offload non-core businesses, and rebuild around an “engineering-first” culture.
