Though technology companies announced massive layoffs last year, 2023 has been much worse. So far, layoffs have far outpaced those in all of 2022, as tech giants including Amazon, Facebook parent company Meta, Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, and Salesforce — as well as many smaller companies — announce sweeping job cuts.
The problem: Big Tech went on a hiring binge during the pandemic when lockdowns sparked a tech buying spree to support remote work and an uptick in e-commerce, and now they face revenue declines.
Although global IT spending is forecast to rise in 2023, with enterprise software and IT services experiencing the greatest growth, the overall increase is expected to be modest, with data center systems and communications services growing by less than 1%, according to market research firm Gartner. Meanwhile hardware sales are forecast to decline.