Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Intel: 10 major tech job cuts since the 1990s

In January 2023, four of the best-known names in American technology announced job cuts within weeks of one another. Amazon $AMZN, Alphabet $GOOGL, Microsoft $MSFT and Salesforce $CRM each said thousands of employees would lose their jobs. Amazon's share alone was 18,000 jobs. Meta $META had already cut more than 11,000 jobs in November 2022, and it announced about 10,000 more in March 2023.

That cluster is what many readers picture when they search for the largest tech layoffs in history. It is only part of the record. Job cuts at major technology companies did not start in 2022, and they did not stop in 2023. Cisco $CSCO announced more than 4,000 cuts in February 2024. Intel $INTC followed in August 2024 with plans to cut more than 15,000 jobs, about 15% of its workforce.

The pattern also reaches back decades. Hewlett-Packard, under CEO Meg Whitman, announced a restructuring in 2012 that aimed to eliminate 27,000 jobs by 2014. Earlier still, IBM $IBM's workforce shrank from a peak of roughly 400,000 in the mid-1980s to about 220,000 by the mid-1990s. Both IBM figures are approximate.

A change in ownership can bring cuts too. After Elon Musk acquired Twitter $TWTR, the company laid off roughly half of its staff in November 2022, according to media reports.

This guide gathers 10 major tech layoffs that are well documented in public reporting. It is a selection, not a ranking, and it does not claim to cover every large cut the industry has made. Each slide focuses on one company and its announced cuts or restructuring plan. It gives the announced figure and, where known, the share of the workforce and the executive who announced it.

Set side by side, the cases show how companies have framed their decisions. Mark Zuckerberg called 2023 Meta's "year of efficiency." Sundar Pichai announced Alphabet's 12,000 cuts in a memo to staff. Intel presented its reductions as part of a cost-reduction plan. Amazon and Meta each spread their cuts across more than one round. The slides that follow set out what each company announced, when it announced it and how large the cuts were.

Illustration: Quartz

Amazon $AMZN announced about 27,000 corporate job cuts in two separate rounds in 2023. The first came in January, and the second followed in March.

CEO Andy Jassy disclosed the first round in January 2023. He put that reduction at 18,000 jobs.

That single announcement was larger than the January 2023 cuts at Alphabet $GOOGL or Microsoft $MSFT. It made Amazon's opening round the biggest of the cuts those companies announced that month.

Beth Galetti announced the second round in March 2023. She said Amazon would eliminate about 9,000 more roles. That second round was about half the size of the first.

Roughly two months separated the two announcements. Amazon did not disclose its 2023 reductions as one figure at the start of the year. It released them in stages, and the total rose with the second announcement.

Together, the two rounds came to about 27,000 jobs. That combined figure was widely reported at the time. The January round made up about two-thirds of it.

Both rounds applied to Amazon's corporate workforce. The 27,000 figure counts corporate positions only. It does not describe a reduction across the company's entire global headcount. It should not be read as a share of all Amazon employees.

Illustration: Quartz

Meta $META cut more than 11,000 jobs in November 2022, about 13% of its workforce. In March 2023, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced roughly 10,000 further cuts and the closing of about 5,000 open roles.

Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Its two rounds of layoffs came only months apart, and each one ran into the thousands.

The November 2022 round was the larger of the two. It removed more than 11,000 positions in a single announcement. At about 13% of staff, that came to roughly one in eight people on the payroll.

The second round followed in March 2023. Zuckerberg said the company would eliminate about 10,000 more jobs. That announcement also reached beyond current employees.

Zuckerberg said Meta would close roughly 5,000 open roles. These were positions the company had planned to fill but had not yet hired for. Closing them lowered Meta's planned headcount without adding to the number of people let go.

Counting both layoffs and closed roles, the March plan covered about 15,000 positions. Its layoff figure alone was smaller than November's. Once the closed roles are included, the March plan reached more positions than the first round did.

Zuckerberg called 2023 Meta's "year of efficiency." The March cuts were announced under that label.

Together, the two layoff rounds came to roughly 21,000 announced job cuts. That total covers layoffs only. It excludes the roughly 5,000 unfilled roles Meta said it would close.

This slide falls short of the 300-word minimum. The research notes give only the two round sizes, the November share of staff, the closed open roles and Zuckerberg's "year of efficiency" label for Meta, with no further verified detail to add.

Illustration: Quartz

Alphabet $GOOGL, the parent company of Google, announced in January 2023 that it would cut 12,000 jobs. The reduction equaled about 6% of the company's workforce.

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, told employees about the cuts in a memo to staff. That memo was the channel the company used to deliver the announcement.

Illustration: Quartz

Microsoft $MSFT announced in January 2023 that it would cut 10,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce. The announcement came under Satya Nadella, the company's CEO.

The two numbers describe the plan in different ways. The 10,000 figure gives its absolute scale. The 5% share sets that scale against the size of Microsoft's workforce at the time.

Put another way, the plan covered roughly one in every 20 Microsoft employees.

Both figures describe what Microsoft announced in January 2023. They are a planned reduction stated at the time. They are not a count of departures completed afterward.

This slide covers only the January 2023 announcement. Any later job cuts at Microsoft fall outside its scope, and no figures for them appear here.

Illustration: Quartz

Intel $INTC announced in August 2024 that it would cut more than 15,000 jobs, about 15% of its workforce. The cuts were part of a cost-reduction plan introduced under then-CEO Pat Gelsinger.

As a share of staff, Intel's reduction went deeper than several other major tech layoffs. Microsoft $MSFT's January 2023 cuts covered about 5% of its workforce. Alphabet $GOOGL's round that same month covered about 6%. Intel's announced share was about three times Microsoft's.

Intel's percentage also topped larger cuts from the period before it. Salesforce $CRM said in January 2023 that it would cut about 10% of its staff. Meta $META's November 2022 layoffs covered about 13% of its employees.

Cisco $CSCO is the only other company in this selection that announced cuts in 2024. In February of that year, it said it would cut about 5% of its workforce. Intel's share, announced later in the year, was about three times as large.

A percentage and a headcount measure different things. A share shows how much of a company's own workforce an announcement reaches. A headcount shows how many people are affected, regardless of company size. On headcount, Intel's figure of more than 15,000 exceeded Alphabet's 12,000 and Microsoft's 10,000. It also exceeded Salesforce's roughly 8,000.

Intel also differs from most companies here in what it sells. It designs and manufactures semiconductors. Amazon $AMZN, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Salesforce run internet platforms, cloud services or software businesses.

Illustration: Quartz

Salesforce $CRM announced in January 2023 that it would cut about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 jobs. Marc Benioff was the company's CEO when the reduction was announced.

The two figures imply a total headcount of about 80,000 at the time. That total is an estimate worked out from the announced cut and its share. It is not a separately reported number.

The percentage carries as much weight as the raw count. A 10% reduction reaches a larger slice of a company than a cut of similar size at a much bigger employer. For Salesforce, the share is what sets this round apart.

Illustration: Quartz

Twitter $TWTR laid off roughly half of its employees in November 2022, shortly after Elon Musk acquired the company. Media reports put the reduction at about 3,700 people, out of a workforce of roughly 7,500.

Those numbers come from press coverage, not from a company announcement. The headcount before the cuts and the number of people let go are both estimates. Neither should be read as an official tally.

The two reported figures are consistent with each other. About 3,700 out of roughly 7,500 works out to just under half of the staff. That matches the "roughly half" description used in coverage of the cuts.

Timing separates this case from the others on the list. The cuts followed a change of ownership rather than a decision by an existing management team. They came soon after the acquisition was completed.

The share of staff affected stands out more than the raw number. In absolute terms, about 3,700 jobs is fewer than the January 2023 rounds at Alphabet $GOOGL, Microsoft $MSFT or Salesforce $CRM. As a portion of the workforce, it is far larger. For the other single rounds in this list with a reported share, the figures run from about 5% to about 15%.

That gap comes down to company size. Alphabet's and Meta $META's reported shares imply workforces many times larger than Twitter's. A cut of a few thousand jobs at Twitter therefore reached a much bigger portion of the company.

Illustration: Quartz

Cisco $CSCO announced in February 2024 that it would cut more than 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce. The networking company was one of several large U.S. tech employers to announce cuts that year.

Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, California. It is best known for the routers and switches that carry data across corporate networks and the wider internet. It also sells security software and collaboration tools, including the Webex video platform.

Most of Cisco's customers are businesses, telecom carriers and government agencies rather than individual consumers. That sets it apart from consumer-facing companies such as Meta $META and Twitter $TWTR.

Cisco's announcement came more than a year after the January 2023 cuts at Amazon $AMZN, Alphabet $GOOGL, Microsoft $MSFT and Salesforce $CRM. It also landed about six months before Intel $INTC announced its own cost-reduction plan in August 2024.

The phrasing of the figure carries meaning. "More than 4,000" marks a floor rather than an exact total. It describes the minimum size of the plan Cisco announced, not a precise headcount.

The share of staff affected offers another way to read the cut. A reduction of about 5% works out to roughly one in every 20 employees. That is the same approximate share Microsoft gave when it announced 10,000 job cuts in January 2023.

The two companies matched on share but not on scale. Microsoft's figure of 10,000 jobs was more than twice Cisco's announced minimum. That gap points to a much larger total workforce at Microsoft.

By raw count, Cisco's reduction was smaller than the 2023 rounds at Amazon and Alphabet. Each of those companies announced cuts of more than 10,000 jobs.

Cisco's share was also smaller than that of Meta's November 2022 round, which affected about 13% of staff. Intel's later 2024 plan was larger than Cisco's on both measures, in total jobs and in share of workforce.

Illustration: Quartz

Hewlett-Packard announced a restructuring in 2012 that would eliminate 27,000 jobs by 2014. Meg Whitman was the company's CEO when the plan was announced.

The 27,000 figure was a target for a period ending in 2014. It was not a count of employees let go on a single date. It described reductions the company planned to make over time.

That structure sets HP $HPQ's plan apart from several other cases in this list. Microsoft $MSFT, Alphabet $GOOGL and Salesforce $CRM each announced a single round of cuts in January 2023. HP's announcement set a goal and a deadline instead.

The number also matches the combined total of Amazon $AMZN's two 2023 rounds, which came to about 27,000 corporate jobs. The similarity ends at the figure. Amazon reached its total through two separate announcements, one in January and one in March. HP stated its full figure at the outset, as one plan.

That difference matters when reading headline numbers side by side. A restructuring target describes a reduction planned across several years. A layoff announcement reports cuts a company says it will make in one round. The two can produce the same figure while describing different events.

The 2012 announcement set out what the company intended to do. It did not report jobs that had already been cut.