Following weeks of layoffs, Ford cut 500 more employees at multiple facilities this week in a move the automaker attributes to indirect effects from the United Auto Workers strike, and slashed another 700 jobs at an electric vehicle facility it said was unrelated to the strike—amid a string of layoffs at U.S. manufacturing and tech companies as lingering recession fears persist (see Forbes’ layoff tracker from the first quarter here).
Ford’s latest rounds of cuts target 700 employees at a Michigan EV plant—which it attributes to “multiple constraints,” including supply-chain shortages—plus another 500 at multiple plants the automaker blames on “upstream effects” from facilities targeted by the UAW strike, according to Ford communications director T.R. Reid, bringing its total layoffs since the start of the strike to nearly 2,500.
LinkedIn—which cut 716 roles in May—announced it will eliminate 668 positions across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams, as the Microsoft-owned company is “adapting our organizational structures and streamlining our decision making.”
Cuts at the Washington Post spread “across all functions” of the company, according to an internal memo that cites an “urgent need to invest in our top growth priorities, following cuts at NPR, Vox, Vice Media, ESPN and the Los Angeles Times.
General Motors announced on Monday it cut 155 employees at facilities in Toledo, Ohio, Lansing, Michigan, and Marion, Indiana—bringing its layoffs since the start of the United Auto Workers strike over 2,300 after the Big Three automaker cut roughly 2,000 Kansas-based assembly plant employees just days into the UAW’s strike, plus more than 200 others in Ohio and Michigan, multiple outlets reported.
Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge, laid off 570 employees primarily at a Michigan engine plant, while metal facility Sodecia Automotive Detroit let go of 143 of its 232 employees due to reduced work from the strike, according to a filing under the Michigan Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
Supply chain management company Flexport is looking to cut 30% of its workforce next month, according to a person familiar with the layoffs who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, marking a major reduction that would affect just over 1,000 of its more than 3,500 employees, according to data from PitchBook.
Cloud services company Juniper Networks, a San Francisco Bay-area cloud service company, announced plans in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing to cut its workforce by 440 jobs as part of a restructuring plan in support of “long-term growth.”
Layoffs at Utah- and Seattle-based survey tool company Qualtrics, which has dual headquarters in Seattle and Provo, Utah, will slash 15% of its workforce, or 780 employees, according to a staff memo from CEO Zig Serafin, as part of a major restructuring initiative affecting 26 company offices, the Deseret News reported.
Wells Fargo will lay off 525 employees in Columbia, South Carolina, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, nearly three months after it cut another 100 employees in Florida, according to a state WARN notice, and after it reportedly slashed more than 100 employees in two rounds of layoffs in September.
Athleticwear giant Lululemon announced a round of cuts in an internal memo obtained by Insider, stemming from the athletic apparel company’s decision to stop selling its Studio Mirror, three years after it purchased Mirror in a $500 million deal (Forbes has reached out to Lululemon for confirmation).
Fortnite and Gears of War maker Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney announced in a staff memo that the North Carolina-based video game developer will slash 16% of its workforce (roughly 830 employees), saying the company has “been spending way more money than we earn.”
Snap announced plans to slash roughly 170 employees as it makes cuts at its AR Enterprise (augmented reality) business, saying the development of generative artificial intelligence “made it harder for us to differentiate our offering” and as the company focuses on its “core advertising business,” marking Snap’s second round of cuts in just over a year, after it cut another 1,280 employees last August.
St. Louis-based health care giant Centene confirmed a round of cuts—which will affect roughly 2,000 employees, or 3% of its workforce—as the company faces steeper competition in providing government-subsidized healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act, one month after the company sold its London division.
The Federal Reserve’s round of layoffs, which will be implemented this year, will primarily target technology jobs at the central bank’s 12 regional reserve banks, a spokesperson told Reuters, affecting just over 1% of the Fed’s roughly 24,500 employees in Washington and at its regional banks, according to its 2022 annual report.
Layoffs at Cisco will start in October and affect 123 employees in Milpitas, California, and another 227 at its San Jose, California, headquarters, the company announced in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing with the state ahead of its $28 billion acquisition of AI cybersecurity firm Splunk, making it the latest Silicon Valley giant to reduce its head count, following Google, DropBox, Zendesk and LinkedIn.
Airtable announced plans to slash 237 employees, representing 27% of its staff, with CEO Howie Liu telling Forbes the cuts come as the market “tip[s] toward favoring efficient growth over growth at all costs”—marking the startup’s second head count reduction in less than 12 months, after it laid off more than 250 employees in December.
Google let go of “hundreds” of company recruiters, sources familiar with the matter told CNN and the New York Times, just over half a year after its parent company, Alphabet, laid out plans to slash roughly 12,000 employees in one of the biggest rounds of job cuts in the U.S. this year.
Layoffs at Binance.US will provide the company with “more than seven years of financial runway,” a company spokesperson told Forbes nearly two months after its partner company Binance reportedly cut more than 1,000 employees, with a Binance spokesperson telling Forbes at the time the company “need[s] to focus on talent density across the organization to ensure we remain nimble and dynamic” ahead of the “next major bull cycle.”
Roku is letting go of 10% of its workforce, estimated to represent up to 360 of its roughly 3,600 employees, the company announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday—its third round of cuts over the past year, following its decision to slash 6% of its workforce (roughly 200 employees) in March and another 200 last November.
Farmers Insurance announced plans to cut roughly 2,400 employees, or 11% of its workforce “across all lines of business” in an effort to boost “long-term profitability,” one month after the company withdrew its business in Florida to manage its risk exposure due to hurricanes, with CEO Raul Vargas calling for cuts “given the existing conditions of the insurance industry and the impact they are having on our business.”
T-Mobile announced it would cut about 7% of its staff—an estimated 5,000 positions—after CEO Mike Sievert told employees the cost of attracting new customers is “materially more expensive than it was a few quarters ago,” according to a filing with the SEC.
General Motors will cut 940 jobs after closing an Arizona-based information technology center in October, according to the Detroit Free Press, after Stacy Lynett, GM’s vice president of information and digital technology, said the move would “optimize our innovation center footprint” while increasing efficiency.
Juul announced a cost-cutting restructuring plan that will reportedly affect 250 employees, as the company cites “a period of regulatory and marketplace uncertainty” for the decision, which also follows a slew of legal battles over allegations it advertised its products to children, including one case late last year that resulted in the company paying a $1.2 billion settlement.
A source familiar with the matter told MarketWatch this week that Dick’s Sporting Goods’ layoffs will affect less than 1% of its workforce, though that round of cuts could hit as many as 528 of its roughly 52,800 employees, according to PitchBook, as the athletic retailer announced a 23% dip in net income.
Phillips 66, a Houston-based oil giant, will slash 175 full-time employees and another 100 contracted workers, multiple outlets reported this week, following the company’s decision late last year to axe 1,100 positions in a cost-cutting effort aimed at saving $500 million.
SecureWorks announced layoffs affecting 15% of its workforce (300 employees) as well as plans to reduce its real estate portfolio in an SEC filing, marking the company’s second round of cuts this year, following its decision to cut another 9% of its then 2,150 employees in February.
Photography giant Shutterfly will close a manufacturing plant outside Minneapolis, letting go of nearly 250 employees starting in October, according to the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Rapid7 will reduce its workforce by 18%, the company announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as part of a cost-cutting restructuring plan, making it the latest Boston-area tech company to conduct a round of layoffs, following cuts at HubSpot, Biogen and Akamai Technologies.
Emergent BioSolutions is cutting roughly 400 employees “across all areas of the company” and will reduce its operations at two facilities outside Baltimore and Boston, according to a statement—interim CEO Haywood Miller said the move will provide the Maryland-based company with “flexibility to respond to future customer demand.”
Tyson Foods said it would close four poultry facilities in Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri, affecting thousands of employees, including nearly 2,200 at two sites in the cities of Noel and Dexter, Missouri, according to a WARN notice—a Tyson Foods spokesperson told Forbes all affected employees are “encouraged to apply for open, posted roles within the company.”
FedEx announced the layoffs—which affect 280 employees at its Tarrant, Texas, shipment center outside Dallas—in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice through the state of Texas, marking the company’s latest in a string of job cuts, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Richland, Mississippi, Temple, Texas, and Macon, Georgia, as well as another round in February affecting 10% of its officers and directors.
Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based satellite imaging company, announced plans to slash 117 employees in a SEC filing and an internal memo from CEO Will Marshall, who said the company is pulling the reins after a period of growth over the past year, and as the “macroeconomic environment has changed.”
Cuts at CVS Health affect roughly 5,000 of its more than 300,000 employees and will primarily affect corporate positions, Forbes reported, and will not impact “customer-facing” positions at its retail pharmacy and clinic locations, a CVS spokesperson told Forbes.
In the biggest round of layoffs so far this year, Yellow Corp. will reportedly lay off all 30,000 employees as it plans to file for bankruptcy, according to a statement from the Teamsters union, which represents roughly two-thirds of workforce.
Funko—the company known for its collectible dolls based on pop culture—announced in a filing with the SEC it would lay off between 180 and 200 employees in an effort to refocus and consolidate it workforce.
Anheuser-Busch parent company AB InBev’s cuts affect less than 2% of the company’s 18,000 U.S. employees (roughly 360 positions), as Bud Light and Budweiser sales tank following the Mulvaney partnership, and as Modelo Especial overtakes Bud Light as America’s highest selling beer.
Christopher Viehbacher, the CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts, biotech company Biogen, announced the layoffs—affecting roughly 1,000 of its 8,750 employees—in a quarterly earnings report, in an effort to reduce the company’s annual operating expenses by $1 billion by 2025, as part of a larger plan to “invest less in other areas which are no longer growing.”
FibroGen, a startup that develops cancer and anemia treatments, announced plans in a SEC filing to slash 32% of its staff, affecting 104 employees, telling SFGATE the cuts affect its U.S. employees and will take effect through the first three months of 2024.
Microsoft reduced its head count by 1,000 jobs, mostly in sales and customer services, anonymous sources told Insider—the Seattle Times reported a round of layoffs at Microsoft one week earlier affecting 276 employees in the Seattle area, while the tech giant last month cut another 158 employees from its Redmond, Washington, headquarters (a Microsoft spokesperson told Forbes the cuts are “a necessary and regular part of managing our business”).
Allina Health, a non-profit healthcare organization that runs more than 100 hospitals and clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin, told multiple outlets it would cut less than 350 employees “throughout the organization” amid “unprecedented financial challenges,” including leadership and non-caregiving roles (Forbes has reached out for confirmation).
Walgreens will cut up to 400 employees and plans to shut down an e-commerce distribution center in Illinois, one month after the pharmacy chain said it would cut more than 500 corporate jobs in Illinois as the company looks to “transform our business into a consumer-centric healthcare company.”
CEO John Hanke said in an internal memo the cuts at Niantic, the maker of Pokemon GO, will affect 230 of the California-based company’s employees as it closes its Los Angeles studio, adding the company has “allowed our expenses to grow faster than revenue,” after a boom in business during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Retailer The Children’s Place announced plans in a SEC filing to cut 181 positions (17% of its salaried staff), with most of the cuts affecting employees at its Secaucus, New Jersey, headquarters, as the company transitions to a “digital-first” model.
Layoffs at Ford could affect as many as 1,000 employees and are expected to target the automaker’s software division, as well as gas-powered and electric vehicle manufacturing, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal—a Ford spokesperson, however, told Forbes the company had “nothing to announce,” and is aligning staffing around “skills and expertise,” including by hiring “in key areas.”
New Relic CEO Bill Staples announced the layoffs—affecting 155 U.S. employees and another 57 internationally—in a statement, arguing the San Francisco-based cloud-based software company made cuts now “to hasten the arrival of our future, especially in light of current economic uncertainty.”
Robinhood’s layoffs are expected to affect 150 employees, according to an internal memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal—the brokerage’s third round of cuts since the start of 2022, including one round last August affecting nearly a quarter of Robinhood’s staff.
Job cuts at KPMG are expected to affect more than 1,900 of the accounting firm’s U.S. employees, marking its second major round of layoffs this year following the release of roughly 700 employees in February, amid a slew of layoffs including at big four accounting firms Ernst & Young and Deloitte.
Goldman Sachs’ cuts will include managing directors in its investment banking division, sources told Bloomberg, just under a month after the Wall Street Journal reported the banking giant was planning a round of cuts affecting under 250 employees and just over five months after the firm laid off nearly 4,000 employees amid a wave of large corporate layoffs affecting big national banks.
Ride share giant Uber cut roughly 200 employees, estimated to represent 35% of its recruiting team but less than 1% of its more than 32,000 employees worldwide, though company officials informed employees in an internal memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal the company plans to keep its headcount flat through the end of the year.
Oracle’s layoffs were reportedly centered in its Oracle Health division, including at IT provider Cerner, which it acquired for $28 billion last year—Oracle had also cut more than 200 employees in October, and started laying off an undisclosed number of its estimated 143,000 employees last summer (Forbes has reached out to Oracle for confirmation).
Phoenix-based Nikola Corporation said it has cut 120 employees based in Arizona and another 150 across “multiple sites” supporting the company’s programs in Europe, as part of a reorganization plan intended to save more than $50 million per year and as the company looks to consolidate its operations.
Sonos, the maker of wireless multi-room sound systems, announced its layoffs in a SEC filing, saying the cuts will affect roughly 130 employees (7% of its workforce ) and the company will re-evaluate its spending and real estate footprint, as it faces “continued headwinds.”
Nearly 230 employees laid off at Tyson Foods had been working at two of the company’s Illinois offices and rejected the company’s request in October to relocate to Arkansas —Tyson had cut another 15% of senior leadership positions and 10% of its roughly 6,000 corporate jobs in April, according to regulatory filings, and announced plans in March to shut two plants in Arkansas and Virginia and cut roughly 1,600 employees.
Grubhub’s cuts will affect roughly 400 of the company’s 2,800 employees, CEO Howard Migdal—just three months into his role—said in an internal memo, citing high staffing and operating costs that have grown “at a higher rate” than its overall business since pre-Covid levels.
Spotify Vice President Sahar Elhabashi announced in a notice to employees the audio streaming giant will cut 200 employees (2% of its workforce) as part of a “strategic realignment,” sending its stock up nearly 0.6% to $152.60—the streaming service previously cut another 6% of its staff (600 positions) in January.
Haven Technologies, the MassMutual-owned insurance software company, will cut roughly 280 employees in a massive round of cuts affecting roughly 70% of the company’s workforce, telling Forbes the cuts are part of a reorganization plan to leave Haven Technologies “best positioned to create the flexible and customer-centric technologies that will enable our clients to help expand access to insurance.”
ZipRecruiter announced in a SEC filing the company will cut its workforce by 270 employees (20% of its staff), in response to “current market conditions and after reducing other discretionary expenses.”
Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier told employees the San-Francisco-based company is cutting its workforce by 8%, affecting just over 500 of its nearly 6,400 employees, according to PitchBook, after hiring “outpaced our business realities” amid “macroeconomic conditions have not improved.”
JPMorgan Chase will provide transitionary and full-time positions for roughly 7,000 First Republic employees but cut its remaining workforce of roughly 1,000, with a spokesperson telling Forbes the “vast majority of First Republic employees” will be given jobs at the bank.
First Citizens chairman and CEO Frank Holding Jr. told employees in an email obtained by Axios that the layoffs were the result of Silicon Valley Bank’s epic failure in March, which made it “increasingly clear that we must make decisions to rightsize our scope and scale to remain competitive.”
Meta informed roughly 6,000 employees they had been let go, CNBC reported, following a previous batch of layoffs affecting about 4,000 employees last month—the cuts are part of the social media giant’s plans to slash 10,000 of its nearly 87,000 employees during its so-called year of efficiency and bring Meta’s total layoffs since November to 21,000.
Abbott Laboratories is cutting 200 jobs, it announced in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice, will bring the manufacturer’s total layoffs at its Westbrook, Maine, facility to over 800, as it continues to “adjust our workforce to align with market conditions” as demand for Covid tests dwindles, local ABC affiliate WMTW reported.
Disney will reportedly lay off another 2,500 employees, just over a month after its latest wave of layoffs—bringing its total number of job cuts this year to roughly 6,500 as part of the company’s plan to slash 7,000 positions, after Iger called the cuts a “necessary step to address the challenges we face today,” in a conference call last month.
TuSimple’s cuts affect 30% of its global workforce, according to a SEC filing, and comes less than half a year after the San Diego-based autonomous truck developer slashed a quarter of its workforce, citing “current market conditions” as the reason for the layoffs.
Austin, Texas-based tech company Accenture PLC will slash nearly 550 positions, according to a WARN notice, cutting its workforce of roughly 5,900 by nearly 10%, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
USAA, the United Services Automobile Association, will cut 300 positions across “most of our offices and different functions,” a company spokesperson confirmed to Forbes, bringing the Texas-based automotive insurance company’s layoffs this year to nearly 800, as it “continues to make necessary adjustments to run a healthy business.”
Nuro, which had laid off 300 employees in November, will cut another 340 (roughly 30% of its workforce), TechCrunch reported, as the company’s cofounders, Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, warn that recent bank failures and recession fears have put a damper on funding and as the company embraces AI advances.
Louisiana-based Ochsner Health will cut 770 employees in both Louisiana and Mississippi (roughly 2% of its workforce), CEO Pete November announced in an email to employees, citing high inflation, increasing costs of labor and the end of Covid-era government relief funding.
Tom Leighton, the CEO of Boston-area internet company Akamai Technologies, announced plans in a call with analysts to lay off roughly 3% of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees, or 300 staff members, the Boston Globe reported.
San Francisco-based Twist Bioscience will slash 25% of its workforce (estimated to affect 270 employees), the San Francisco Business Journal reported.
Paramount Media Networks and Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, the media divisions behind MTV, Showtime, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and streaming service Paramount+, unveiled plans to cut 25% of its staff and shut down MTV News as the company contends with “pressure from broader economic headwinds like many of our peers.”
In a financial report, Maryland-based pharmaceutical company Novavax announced it will cut one quarter of its workforce (estimated to affect nearly 500 of its just under 2,000 employees), as demand for Covid vaccines wanes, with CEO John Jacobs calling the decision “necessary to better align our infrastructure and scale to the endemic Covid opportunity.”
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn plans to slash 716 of its roughly 20,000 positions, CEO Ryan Roslansky announced in a statement, amid faltering demand, “shifts in customer behavior” and a “rapidly changing landscape.”
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke unveiled the layoffs—as well as a plan to sell its logistics arm to tech company Flexport—in a memo to employees, saying the company is adjusting to the “dawn of the AI era” and that it has the “best chances of using AI to help our customers” (layoffs are estimated to affect more than 2,300 of Shopify’s roughly 11,600 employees, according to PitchBook, after the company laid off another 10% of its workforce last July).
Unity Software will reduce its staff by roughly 8% and restructure “specific” internal teams, the San Francisco-based tech company announced in a SEC filing, saying the restructuring plan will cost the company $26 million but position it for “long-term and profitable growth.”
Morgan Stanley’s cuts will reportedly affect more than 3.6% of its 82,000 employees and primarily impact banking and trading positions, multiple outlets reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, after financial filings revealed the company’s total revenue dropped by 2% to $14.5 billion over the 12-month period ending March 31, and just six months after it reportedly cut another 1,600 employees (Forbes has reached out to Morgan Stanley for confirmation).
Rideshare company Lyft unveiled plans to slash nearly 1,100 positions in a SEC filing, just weeks after confirming a round of layoffs in a blog post and nearly six months after 700 people were laid off from the company.
Vice Media’s layoffs could affect more than 100 of the outlet’s roughly 1,500 employees, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal—making it the latest media outlet to conduct cuts, along with BuzzFeed News, ESPN, Insider Inc. and NPR.
Gap will cut roughly 1,800 corporate employees, according to a SEC filing, as part of a restructuring plan that will cost the company between $100 million and $120 million, following an initial round of job cuts in September that affected more than 500 corporate positions.
Dropbox’s layoffs will affect roughly 16% of the San Francisco-based tech giant’s staff, the company announced in an SEC filing, citing slow growth, economic downturn and as the company embraces the “AI era,” which CEO Drew Houston believes will “completely transform knowledge work.”
3M, the manufacturing giant known for its Post-It Notes and Scotch tape, announced it was cutting 6,000 manufacturing jobs in an effort to cut annual costs by as much as $900 million, just months after the company cut 2,500 positions in January, 3M said in a statement.
Red Hat, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based software manufacturer, started cutting 4% of its workforce, multiple outlets reported, with cuts estimated to affect roughly 760 of its 19,000 employees, according to PitchBook. (Forbes has reached out to Red Hat for confirmation.)
Deloitte will cut 1,200 of its more than 156,000 jobs in its U.S. workforce, the Financial Times reported, citing internal employee communications. (Deloitte did not immediately respond to a Forbes inquiry for confirmation.)
Whole Foods plans to cut several hundred corporate jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported an internal memo as showing, as the company aims to simplify operations and restructure some of its corporate teams, but it will not close any facilities or stores. (Whole Foods did not immediately respond to a Forbes inquiry for confirmation.)
Opendoor will cut 560 employees, roughly 22% of its workforce, in its latest round of cuts, after the online real estate company slashed another 18% of its staff in November, telling Forbes the company has suffered from high mortgage rates and has been “weathering a sharp transition in the housing market,” with a 30% decline in new listings from last year.
Accounting firm Ernst & Young is cutting roughly 3,000 employees based in the U.S.—less than 5% of its U.S. workforce and less than 1% of its more than 358,000 employees worldwide, according to PitchBook—over concerns with the “impact of current economic conditions, strong employee retention rates and overcapacity.” (Ernst & Young did not immediately respond to a Forbes inquiry for confirmation.)
David’s Bridal filed notice it would lay off 9,236 people nationwide due to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, though the company told Forbes in August its acquisition in June by CION Investment Corporation allowed it keep nearly 200 David’s Bridal stores open and save roughly 7,000 positions.
The extent of Best Buy’s layoffs is not yet clear, though sources told the Wall Street Journal the big box tech and appliance retailer informed hundreds of employees who had sold smartphones and computers at more than 900 U.S. stores that their positions had been eliminated.
Redfin cut 200 employees “due to the housing downturn and economic uncertainty,” the Seattle-based company confirmed to Forbes, following two rounds of layoffs over the past year, including one in November affecting 862 employees. (Redfin has more than 5,500 employees, according to PitchBook.)
Walmart, the biggest employer in the country, laid off more than 2,000 employees at five plants, including in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, just weeks after reportedly asking roughly 200 workers to look for other jobs at other company sites last month as part of an adjustment in staffing “to better prepare for the future needs of customers.”
McDonald’s plans to cut “hundreds” of employees in a restructuring plan, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources, after the fast-food giant closed its corporate offices for part of the week in order to conduct the layoffs—McDonald’s, which has 150,000 global employees, according to PitchBook, did not respond to a Forbes inquiry.
Hyland Software, the developer behind process management software OnBase, announced plans to cut 1,000 employees—roughly a fifth of its workforce—and reassess job responsibilities, as CEO Bill Priemer said the Ohio tech company “did not anticipate the degree to which inflation, rising interest rates and wage increases would impact our expenses.”
136,000. That’s how many employees were cut in major U.S. layoffs over the first three months of 2023—more than the previous two fiscal quarters combined, led by massive head count reductions at Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, according to Forbes’ tracker.
Despite massive layoffs continuing at many large companies over the first few months of 2023, the U.S. labor market still managed to add 236,000 jobs in the month of March while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% from 3.6% in February, according to Labor Department data—though it was the smallest increase in total employment since December 2020, sparking fears among economists that a recession could be under way.
Large U.S. companies ranging from tech startups to manufacturers, retailers and banks conducted a series of major layoffs last summer—with nearly 125,000 U.S. employees affected by cuts at more than 120 large U.S. companies between June and December, according to Forbes’ tracker. Employers feared high inflation and multiple rounds of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve could throw the economy into recession. Nearly half of those cuts came in the months of November and December, led by massive reductions at Amazon, which cut 10,000 employees, and Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, which cut 11,000 employees. Amazon and Meta both unveiled new rounds of cuts in March.
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