CRN looks at 10 of the biggest tech company layoffs that made their mark in 2024.
Tech Layoffs: Adjusting To Changing Times
The U.S. unemployment rate has been fairly steady in the last year, and currently dances around a mere 4.2 percent, down from 4.3 percent just a few months ago, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
The low overall unemployment rate that characterized 2024 was also reflected in the tech industry where, as of September 2024, the unemployment rate is 2.5 percent, according to CompTIA, citing BLS data. This is down from the previous month’s unemployment rate of 3.4 percent, thanks to an increase in employment by 8,583 positions.
Tech companies lay off employees for any of several reasons, including optimizing their operations, responding to changing market conditions, readjusting their priorities, or, in the worst-case scenario, closing the entire business or certain parts of it.
[Related: The 10 Biggest Tech Company Layoffs Of 2023 (So Far)]
CRN looks at 10 of the most important tech layoffs of 2024, with a focus on layoffs in companies whose businesses impact indirect channels. Therefore, while a large layoff may happen at a video streaming company’s or hotel’s internal IT team, it is not listed here.
The list is based on the actual number of layoffs where available, and on announced layouts where the actual number is not available. However, the final number of employees laid off is subject to change, either as cuts go farther than expected or as businesses add new employees.
Also, this list of tech layoffs is focused on absolute numbers of employees whose positions were eliminated, not on how big the impacts on the companies as a whole are. So while a company like Ora Security in January unveiled a large 15-percent reduction in headcount, a total of 60 employees were impacted, and so it did not make the list.
Wade Millward, CJ Fairfield, Rick Whiting, Gina Narcisi, O’Ryan Johnson, and Mark Haranas contributed to this article.
Ingram Micro: 850 Layoffs
IT distribution heavyweight Ingram Micro in September said it was eliminating about 850 of its positions, with a planned layoff expected to be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Ingram Micro CEO Paul Bay unveiled the planned job cuts in a letter to Ingram Micro employees in which he wrote that Ingram Micro is undertaking a “series of restructuring activities” across the company over the next three months that will result in the elimination of 850 employees.
The restructuring included the integration of Ingram Micro’s digital and information technology teams to reduce costs and eliminate redundancies, transforming the company’s historical shared services model into an exception-based model, and streamlining selected country, business, and functional organizations.
This was not the first layoff for Ingram Micro, which in October became a public company after several years as a private company. The company early this year unveiled an unspecified number of layoffs, the latest in a series of layoff rounds. Ingram Micro later reported in a regulatory filing that 503 employees were let go at the time, and that it laid off an additional 606 employees in the 39 weeks ended September 30, 2023.
AMD: 1,000 Layoffs
Semiconductor manufacturer AMD in November said it planned to cut about 4 percent of its global workforce, or about 1,000 position, as it looks for ways to shift focus towards competing against Nvidia’s AI chip business. The move, reported by Reuters, CNBC, and other news outlets, came after AMD’s data center business, which includes its AI graphics processor development, more than doubled in its September quarter even as its personal computer segment grew by nearly one-third while its gaming business fell about two-thirds.
Cloud Software Group: 1,000 Layoffs
Cloud Software Group, the parent of cloud vendor Citrix, in January said it laid off about 12 percent of its workforce as part of a plan to streamline the company. CSG was expected to hire additional employees in parts of the business, but in the parts where jobs were cut, the company took “a pragmatic look at those places where we simply need fewer or different resources,” according to a LinkedIn post by CEO Tom Krause.
“Cloud Software Group is committed to building a foundation of sustainable value creation for our customers and partners,” Krause said in the post. “To those impacted, thank you for your contributions in the first year of Cloud Software Group. These decisions are never taken lightly, but are necessary to build the strongest foundation possible for the future.”
In his post, Krause said the company working with partners who will rehire many of its impacted employees in such areas as operations, security, and IT functions to continue providing outsourced services to Cloud Software Group.
A CSG spokesperson told CRN that the company cut about 1,000 employees worldwide across business units and corporate teams. About 500 of those employees should get “rehired in an outsourced capacity.”
This latest round of layoffs comes exactly a year after CSG cut 15 percent of its workforce, thousands of jobs, with plans for Citrix to focus on its top 1,000 customers and leave mid-tier and commercial accounts for service and support by solution providers.
Salesforce: 1,000 Layoffs
Salesforce in January unveiled plans to lay off 700 employees, or about 1 percent of the company, according to multiple news reports. That round of layoffs followed the 10-percent employee reduction it made in early 2023.
Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported on the layoffs. Salesforce still has 1,000 open positions across the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move is possibly part of a routine workforce adjustment instead of a strategic shift.
Bloomberg in July reported that Salesforce laid off another 300 employees that month as part of a broader effort to streamline operations.
Bloomberg in November also reported that Salesforce plans to lay off employees of its Own data protection business. Salesforce in September acquired Own for $1.9 billion.
OpenText: 1,200 Layoffs
OpenText, a supplier of a wide range of cybersecurity, AI and other IT management solutions for MSPs, said it planned to lay off 1,200 employees and add 800 positions as part of a “business optimization plan” to support its “growth and innovation plans,” according to a July 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Overall, the business optimization plan, which is intended to strategically align the company’s workforce, is expected to result in a 1.7 percent reduction of its workforce to approximately 23,000 employees.
The business optimization plan also is expected to result in annualized cost savings of approximately $200 million for the $4.5 billion MSP software behemoth. At the same time, the company is reinvesting approximately $50 million annually for approximately 800 new roles in sales, professional services and engineering.
Microsoft Azure: 1,500 Layoffs
Microsoft was reportedly laying off hundreds of employees in Azure and its mixed reality businesses this past summer. Business Insider reported in June that Microsoft will cut as many as 1,500 in Azure for Operators and Mission Engineering. This is part of Microsoft’s Strategic Missions and Technologies (SMT) organization led by Jason Zander, the former executive vice president of Microsoft Azure.
A Microsoft spokesperson told CRN in a statement that “organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business. We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners.”
Business Insider separately reported that Zander credited the layoffs to Microsoft putting more investment into artificial intelligence, halting previews for Azure Operator 5G Core (AO5GC) and Azure Operator Call Protection. Employees working on The Azure Operator Nexus will join the Cloud + AI organizations’ Azure Edge and Platform product line, according to Business Insider.
In a move that does not directly impact the company’s B2B business, Microsoft in late this year laid off about 650 employees in its gaming division, following January layoffs of about 1,900 employees, TechCrunch reported.
Xerox: 3,100 Layoffs
Xerox Holdings Corp. in January said it would cut 15 percent of its workforce, a little more than 3,000 employees, during that quarter as the printer and copier giant announced a new operation model and shift in organizational structure. Xerox had 20,700 employees as of June 2023, according to a regulatory filing last August, which would mean about 3,100 jobs cut. Xerox declined to comment on what departments and regions were impacted.
“The evolution of Xerox’s reinvention aligns our resources in three key areas – improvement and stabilization of our core print business, increased productivity and efficiency through the formation of a new Global Business Services organization, and disciplined execution in revenue diversification,” said Xerox CEO Steven Bandrowczak in a statement.
A Xerox spokesperson told CRN in an email that the “proposed reductions will be subject to formal consultation with local works councils and employee representative bodies where applicable. The decision to reduce our global workforce was a difficult but necessary step toward establishing long-term viability for Xerox. Xerox is committed to providing transition support for affected employees.”
Cisco: Up to 9,850 Layoffs
Cisco Systems in August said it plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce, or over 5,000 employees, as part of a major restructuring. Some news reports put the total layoffs as about 5,600 employees. The action is expected to result in related expenses of $700 million to $800 million during the company’s first fiscal quarter 2025.
This follows a similar move February when Cisco said it saw “greater degrees of caution” related to product ordering during its fiscal Q2 in 2024, which lowered product revenues. At that time, the tech giant confirmed that it would be cutting jobs globally to adjust expenses and investments to reflect the current macro environment, Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins told investors during the company’s fiscal Q2 2024 earnings call on Wednesday evening.
Cisco in its second quarter filings announced a companywide layoff that would impact about 5 percent of its workforce, or about 4,250 employees, as it works to realign its organization to focus on “key priority” areas.
The tech giant expects to recognize about $800 million in charges associated with the restructuring, which Cisco said was largely related to severance and other one-time termination benefits. The majority of the costs are expected to occur in the third fiscal quarter and will continue into the first half of the company’s fiscal 2025.
SAP: 10,000 Layoffs
Software developer SAP in July said it now plans to lay off between 9,000 and 10,000 workers, up from the 8,000 positions the company originally said would be affected by job buyouts and position changes. The company unveiled the news during its earnings call with industry analysts for its fiscal 2024 second quarter results, which included 10 percent total revenue growth to €8.29 billion, or just under U.S. $9 billion. The company plans to spend up to €3 billion Euros, or $3.12 billion, as a result of the layoffs.
“Despite the volatile environment in the software industry, our growth momentum remained strong in Q2,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said during the earnings call on Monday, according to a call transcript on the Seeking Alpha website. “In Q2 we also significantly increased our profitability. We continued to execute on our transformation program with great discipline with rehiring only for the skill sets we need.”
SAP announced the Ambition 2025 restructuring plan in January to increase its focus on strategic growth areas – including business AI – and transform its operations to better “capture organizational synergies and AI-driven efficiencies and to prepare the company for highly scalable future revenue growth,” the company said at the time.
The majority of SAP’s layoffs are covered by voluntary leave and internal re-training programs and the company expects to finish 2024 with about the same number of employees, more than 105,000, as it began the year with. As of June 30, the company had 105,380 employees.
Intel: 15,000-Plus Layoffs
Semiconductor giant Intel in early August said it would lay off more than 15 percent of its workforce as part of a plan aimed at reducing costs by over $10 billion in its fiscal 2025. That plan includes the elimination of roughly 15,000 jobs, large cuts in operating and capital expenses, and suspension of the company’s dividend starting in the fourth quarter.
The cuts so far have included roughly 1,300 employees in Oregon, 385 employees in Arizona, 319 employees in California, and 251 employees in Austin, Texas, according to WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices for those states.
The majority of these cuts will be completed by the end of this year, former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger wrote in an open letter to Intel employees posted on the company website.
“This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read. This is an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history,” wrote Gelsinger, who abruptly exited the company in early December.
