The San Francisco Bay Area could lose up to 24,000 tech jobs as more companies shed employees amid high interest rates and inflation in what local media describes as a “layoffs jolt” to the Bay Area.
As thousands of employees have already been laid off by Silicon Valley tech companies, The Mercury News highlights WARN letters filed by many companies – in compliance with federal labor laws – that “detailed plans for well over 24,000 layoffs in the Bay Area.”
The WARN Act of 1988 requires large employers to provide 60 days notice when they are planning to close or for mass layoffs of employees.
Today alone, the outlet reports that San Francisco lost another 300 jobs from companies as high profile as IBM, the legendary tech services and product manufacturer, which cut 53 jobs today. IBM was joined by biotech company Myovant Sciences, which cut 94 jobs, Amplitude, which cut 83, and Accenture, which cut 75.
Other high profile companies to lay off employees include Twitch, Rivian Automotive, Intel, Amazon, the parent company of HelloFresh, Cisco Systems, and Salesforce.
Noah Friedlander / Wikimedia Commons
The deepest cuts have been from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which has cut 2,564 jobs so far. Behind them ranks Google, which has shed 1,608 employees.
Under Elon Musk’s management, Twitter has fired or laid off 900 employees. Musk has been public with the platform’s stark financial prospects upon him acquiring it, and acknowledged that the cuts were necessary to keep the platform from hemorrhaging cash after he spent billions to buy it.
While other companies are less transparent, Musk has publicly committed to improving its ad platform and monetizing its users via Twitter Blue, which Musk changed to include access to the coveted verification checkmark and a host of other benefits.
Musk has also repeatedly threatened to terminate employees who resist returning to the office and insist on continuing their pandemic-era work-from-home lifestyles.
Though Meta’s actions may be less transparent than Twitter, their flagship Facebook recently unveiled a similar program to Twitter Blue, allowing users to pay Facebook – and provide identification documents to Meta – in exchange for a checkmark.
However, some doubt whether new monetization strategies will be enough to counter the prevailing economic winds, which some experts claim point toward recession.
Adding to the city’s misfortunes, Whole Foods recently closed its downtown location only days after the founder of Cash App was stabbed to death in the “good” part of the city.
