The tech industry has been so delirious about the vast wealth that pervasive chatbots will supposedly unleash, it forgot about the massive layoffs on the road to AI nirvana. Luckily, every day there is a new tech giant to remind us of just how much fewer jobs will be needed in said future, and how laughable the Biden Labor Department's "strong jobs data" is... and today it was network giant Cisco's turn.
According to Reuters, Cisco will lay off "thousands of employees", as part of a business restructuring which seeks to "focus on high-growth areas".... such as AI/chatGPT of course. The San Jose-based company, which has a total employee count of 84,900 according to its website - is still deciding on the total number of employees to be affected by the layoffs, but it will certainly be substantial. The official announcement will likely come next week, when the company holes its earnings call on Feb. 14.
In November 2022, Cisco announced during an earnings call a restructuring that impacted roughly 5% of its workforce which lead to $600 million in severance and other charges. Back then Cisco cut its full-year revenue and profit forecasts, and blamed the weakness on a slowdown in orders in the first quarter, saying "customers are currently focused on installing and implementing products in their environments." The coming mass termination will probably reiterate continued weakness even as the lunatic buying up chatGPT chips and hot air keep bidding up the AI bubble.
Cisco joins dozens of other tech companies which have started 2024 - a year when supposedly the economy is bursting higher according to fans of the president with dementia and where AI stocks are soaring - with another brutal wave of job cuts, paring back even further after widespread layoffs last year.
So far, nearly 34,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2024 according to Layoffs.fyi.
Prior to Cisco, Snap and DocuSign became the latest examples, announcing earlier this week they they are reducing their workforces by about 10% and 6%, respectively. Earlier this month, software company Okta Inc. said it would eliminate 7% of its staff to reduce costs, affecting about 400 employees. The list goes on, including Big Tech employers like Amazon.com, Salesforce and Meta Platforms.
This year, “tech companies are still trying to correct for their over-hiring during the pandemic surge, given that the high interest-rate environment and tech downturn have both lasted longer than initially expected,” Layoffs.fyi founder Roger Lee told Bloomberg.
There have been two main waves of job cuts in recent years, according to Lee. The “early Covid” spike, from the first to second quarters of 2020, and the “interest rate hike” effect, which has been going on since the second quarter of 2022. “This year’s layoffs are typically smaller and more targeted than the layoffs a year ago,” Lee said.
Although economic factors are the main reason for tech layoffs, Lee noted that many companies are citing the race for artificial intelligence as a factor, as they are shifting resources to focus on AI talent. According to an analysis by CompTIA, which tracks employment trends in the tech industry, job postings in “artificial intelligence or requiring AI skill increased by about 2,000 from December to January, to 17,479.”
“I do feel like most of the layoffs have happened, and companies are going to start to rebound,” said Bert Bean, chief executive officer of staffing company Insight Global. “But it’s still very uncertain.” He expects the market to remain that way for about the next two quarters, “until the Fed really comes out and starts to cut interest rates.”
Good luck with Bert, who clearly has zero conflicts of interest. And also good luck to anyone else who believes that BS from the BLS that unemployment is "falling"; instead here is the truth, and this covers just the past few weeks.
1. Twitch: 35% of workforce
2. Roomba: 31% of workforce
3. Hasbro: 20% of workforce
4. LA Times: 20% of workforce
5. Spotify: 17% of workforce
6. Levi's: 15% of workforce
7. Xerox: 15% of workforce
8. Qualtrics: 14% of workforce
9. Wayfair: 13% of workforce
10. Duolingo: 10% of workforce
11. Washington Post: 10% of workforce
12: Snap: 10% of workforce
13. eBay: 9% of workforce
14. Business Insider: 8% of workforce
15. Paypal: 7% of workforce
16. Okta: 7% of workforce
17. Charles Schwab: 6% of workforce
18. Docusign: 6% of workforce
19. UPS: 2% of workforce
20. Blackrock: 3% of workforce
21. Citigroup: 20,000 employees
22. Pixar: 1,300 employees
According to the Biden Bureau of Goalseeked Statistical Bullshit, none of this is happening...
