Add 60,000 layoffs Amazon, Meta and Salesforce, among others 1:03
(CNN) --
Earlier this week, Google's parent company Alphabet, Microsoft and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 workers.
These measures come on top of job cuts earlier in the month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Salesforce.
More companies are expected to follow suit as companies that have aggressively hired in the last two years hit the brakes and, in many cases, back down.
The cuts contrast sharply with those of 2022, the year in which the second largest job increase in history was recorded, with 4.5 million.
But last year's jobs numbers began to fall as the year progressed, with the December jobs report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years.
The highest level of hiring occurred in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were created.
However, this occurred just after the first year of the pandemic, when the United States came to a standstill and 9.3 million jobs were lost.
A third of the world economy would be in recession by 2023, warns the head of the IMF
The current layoffs affect multiple sectors, from media companies to Wall Street, but so far they are hitting Big Tech especially hard.
advertising
This is in contrast to job losses during the pandemic, in which consumer shopping habits shifted toward e-commerce and other online services during the lockdown.
Tech companies jumped into hiring.
But now workers are returning to their offices and face-to-face purchases are picking up.
Add in the increasing probability of recession, higher interest rates, and tepid demand due to rising prices, and tech companies are cutting costs.
January has been filled with headlines announcing job cuts at one company after another.
Below is a list of this month's layoffs, so far.
alphabet
Google's parent said Friday it will lay off 12,000 workers in product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce.
Alphabet has hired 50,000 workers in the past two years as the pandemic has created increased demand for its services.
But recent recession fears have caused advertisers to pull out of their core digital advertising business.
"In the last two years we have seen periods of dramatic growth," CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees.
"To match and fuel that growth, we contracted for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
Microsoft
The tech giant is laying off 10,000 employees, the company said in a securities statement on Wednesday.
Worldwide, Microsoft has 221,000 full-time employees, 122,000 of them in the United States.
CEO Satya Nadella said during a talk in Davos that "nobody can defy gravity" and that Microsoft could not ignore the weakness of the global economy.
"We live in times of significant change, and as I meet with customers and partners, a few things are clear," Nadella wrote in a memo.
"First, just as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we're now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less."
Vox Media
The publisher of news and opinion website Vox, technology website The Verge and New York Magazine announced Friday that it is cutting 7% of its staff, or about 130 people.
"We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and technology industries have encountered," CEO Jim Bankoff said in a memo.
BlackRock
The layoffs are also hitting Wall Street hard.
The largest asset manager in the world will eliminate 500 jobs, that is, less than 3% of its workforce.
The current "unprecedented market environment" contrasts sharply with its position in the last three years, when it increased its workforce by around 22%.
Its last big round of cuts was in 2019.
Goldman Sachs
The bank will lay off up to 3,200 workers this month amid a slump in global trading activity.
More than a third of the cuts are expected to come from the company's banking and trading units.
Goldman Sachs had almost 50,000 employees at the end of the third quarter of last year.
coinbase
The crypto exchange announced in early January that it was laying off 950 people, nearly one in five of its workforce.
The move comes just months after Coinbase laid off 1,100 people.
Although Bitcoin had a strong start to the year, cryptocurrency businesses were hit by significant drops in the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
McDonald's
McDonald's, which thrived during the pandemic, plans to cut some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said this month.
"We will be evaluating roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be tough discussions and decisions ahead," Kempszinski said, outlining a plan to "break down internal barriers, grow more innovatively and reduce work that doesn't align." with the company's priorities.
stitch fix
The online subscription-based custom clothing retailer said it plans to lay off 20% of its salaried staff.
“We will lose many talented team members from across the company and I am so sorry,” Stitch Fix founder and former CEO Katrina Lake wrote in a blog post.
Amazon
As the new year begins, Amazon said it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees.
Departments ranging from human resources to the company's Amazon stores will be affected.
"Companies that have been around for a long time go through different phases. They're not in big people expansion mode every year," CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.
Amazon boomed during the pandemic and hired quickly in recent years.
But demand has cooled as consumers return to their offline lives and battle high prices.
Amazon claims to have more than 800,000 employees.
At The New York Times' DealBook Summit in November, Jassy said she thinks Amazon "made the right decision" in its rapid infrastructure buildout, but called its hiring streak a "lesson for everyone."
As he spoke, Amazon warehouse workers who last year helped organize the company's first-ever union in the US at a Staten Island facility were protesting against Jassy's intervention outside Amazon headquarters. The conference.
"We want to take this opportunity to let you know that the workers are waiting and that we are ready to negotiate our first contract," Amazon union president Chris Smalls said, calling the protest a "welcome party" for Jassy.
salesforce
Salesforce will cut about 10% of its workforce of more than 70,000 employees and reduce its real estate footprint.
In a letter to employees, Salesforce president and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted to overincreasing the company's headcount early in the pandemic.
CNN's Clare Duffy, Matt Egan, Oliver Darcy, Julia Horowitz, Catherine Thorbecke, Paul R. La Monica, Nathaniel Meyersohn, Parija Kavilanz, Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Hanna Ziady contributed to this article.
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