January is already breaking tech layoff records as 18,392 tech workers lost their jobs in the first week of 2023

The year is just getting started and large tech companies including Amazon, Salesforce, and Stitch Fix have already laid off 16,420 of their workers, according to Crunchbase. January 2023 became the second-largest layoff month since November 2022, when about 44,570 U.S. tech workers lost their jobs.

The layoff situation appears to be worse. According to data from Layoffs.FYI, a site that has been tracking all tech layoffs using data compiled from public reports, 36 tech companies laid off a total of 18,392 tech workers in the first week of this year alone. As you can see from the chart below, January layoffs have already surpassed each of the months of May, June, and July 2022 as the global economic slowdowns take a toll on tech companies.

As we reported last week, Salesforce announced it was laying off 10 percent of its over 70,000 employees. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Salesforce said it plans to reduce headcount, scale back on real estate, and slash office space in certain markets. The company currently has 73,541 employees, according to the latest SEC filings.

Salesforce was not alone. The CRM giant was just the latest in a series of tech companies to announce layoffs amid recession threats and global slowdown. Last year, tech companies including Meta, and Twitter reduced their headcount and slowed hiring as global economic growth weakens due to looming recession, inflation, higher interest rates, the energy crisis in Europe, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

While all attentions are on big tech companies, tech startups are also not immuned from ongoing layoffs. In fact, a majority of startups saw the writing on the wall in 2022 as investors pulled back after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates multiple times, making it much more expensive for companies to borrow money.

Slow demands and sluggish sales have also forced many startups to introduce several cost-cutting measures including hiring freeze and headcount cuts. According to Crunchbase, the majority of U.S. tech sector layoffs in 2022 were driven primarily by early-stage startups and a handful of mature, late-stage startups such as Gopuff, Klarna, and Stripe, all of which carried multiple layoffs throughout 2022.

In 2022, at least 154,036 tech workers have lost their jobs, according to Layoffs.FYI.