Thomson Reuters
- Last year's job cuts weren't the end of layoffs. Further reductions continue in 2024.
- Companies like Tesla, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Dell, and Paramount have announced plans for cuts.
- See the list of companies reducing their worker numbers in 2024.
After a brutal year of layoffs in 2023, companies this year have continued to cut jobs across tech, media, finance, manufacturing, and retail.
Tech titans like IBM, Google, and Microsoft; finance leaders like Goldman Sachs, Citi, and BlackRock; entertainment behemoths like Pixar and Paramount; and corporate giants like Tesla, Dow, and Nike have all announced layoffs.
A survey in late December of last year said nearly 40% of business leaders had expected layoffs this year, ResumeBuilder said. ResumeBuilder talked to about 900 leaders at organizations with more than 10 employees. Half of those surveyed cited concerns about a recession as a reason for potential layoffs.
Another major factor survey respondents cited was artificial intelligence. Around four in 10 leaders said they would conduct layoffs as they replace workers with AI. Dropbox, Google, and IBM have already announced job cuts related to AI.
Here are the dozens of companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2024.
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Nike announced its cost-cutting plans in a December 2023 earnings call, discussing a slow growth in sales. The call subsequently resulted in Nike's stock plunging.
"We are seeing indications of more cautious consumer behavior around the world," Nike Chief Financial Officer Matt Friend said in December.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
On January 10, Google laid off hundreds of workers in its central engineering division and members of its hardware teams — including those working on its voice-activated assistant.
In an email to some affected employees, the company encouraged them to consider applying for open positions at Google if they want to remain employed. According to the email, April 9 will be the last day for those unable to secure a new position.
The tech giant laid off thousands throughout 2023, beginning with a 6% reduction of its global workforce (about 12,000 people) last January.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Discord employees learned about the layoffs in an all-hands meeting and a memo sent by CEO Jason Citron in early January.
"We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020," Citron said in the memo. "As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated."
In August 2023, Discord reduced its headcount by 4%. According to CNBC, the company was valued at $15 billion in 2021.
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The layoffs announced in January are part of a larger Citigroup initiative to restructure the business and could leave the company with a remaining head count of 180,000 — excluding its Mexico operations.
In an earnings call that month, the bank said that layoffs could save the company up to $2.5 billion after it suffered a "very disappointing" final quarter last year.
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Twitch announced on January 10 that it would cut 500 jobs, affecting over a third of the employees at the live-streaming company.
CEO Dan Clancy announced the layoffs in a memo, telling staff that while the company has tried to cut costs, the operation is "meaningfully" bigger than necessary.
"As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible," Clancy wrote. "Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch."
Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress
Larry Fink, BlackRock's chief executive, and Rob Kapito, the firm's president, announced in January that the layoffs would affect around 600 people from its workforce of about 20,000.
However, the company has plans to expand in other areas to support growth in its overseas markets.
"As we prepare for 2024 and this very exciting but distinctly different landscape, businesses across the firm have developed plans to reallocate resources," the company leaders said in a memo.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
In the fashion company's January announcement, COO and president Anushka Salinas said she will also be leaving the firm, Fast Company reported.
Sutro Software
Around 1,800 jobs at the video game software company will be affected by the layoffs announced, Reuters reported in January.
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In a January 23 memo, CEO Jamie Iannone told employees that the eBay layoffs will affect about 9% of the company's workforce.
Iannone told employees that layoffs were necessary as the company's "overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business."
The company also plans to scale back on contractors.
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In late January, nearly three months after Microsoft acquired video game firm Activision Blizzard, the company announced layoffs in its gaming divisions. The layoffs mostly affect employees at Activision Blizzard.
"As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a memo obtained by The Verge.
The cuts come a year after the tech giant announced it was reducing its workforce by 10,000 employees. It then slashed a further 1,000 roles across sales and customer service teams in July 2023.
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Salesforce announced a round of layoffs that the company says will affect 1% of its global workforce, The Journal reported in late January.
The cuts followed a wave of cuts at the cloud giant last year. In 2023, Marc Benioff's company laid off about 10% of its total workforce — or roughly 7,000 jobs. The CEO said the company over-hired during the pandemic.
Sam Barnes/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images
In late January, the US logistics startup laid off 15% of its staff which is around 400 workers.
The move came after Flexport founder and CEO Ryan Petersen initiated a 20% reduction of its workforce of an estimated 2,600 employees in October.
Flexport kicked off 2024 with the announcement that it raised $260 million from Shopify and made "massive progress toward returning Flexport to profitability."
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The company behind the Roomba Vacuum announced layoffs in late January around the same time Amazon decided not to go through with its proposed acquisition of the company, the Associated Press reported.
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The UPS layoffs will affect 14% of the company's 85,000 managers and could save the company $1 billion in 2024, UPS CEO Carol Tomé said during a January earnings call.
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Announced in late January, this round of layoffs will affect about 2,500 employees at the payment processing company.
"We are doing this to right-size our business, allowing us to move with the speed needed to deliver for our customers and drive profitable growth," CEO Alex Chriss wrote in a January memo. "At the same time, we will continue to invest in areas of the business we believe will create and accelerate growth."
SOPA Images/ Getty
The digital-access-management company announced its plans for a "restructuring plan intended to improve operating efficiencies and strengthen the Company's commitment to profitable growth" in an SEC filing in February.
The cuts will impact roughly 400 employees.
Okta CEO Todd McKinnon told staff in a memo that "costs are still too high," CNBC reported.
Snapchat, Tyler Le/Insider
The company behind Snapchat announced in February that it's reducing its global workforce by 10%, according to an SEC filing.
Reuters
The cosmetics company announced in February that it would be cutting 3% to 5% of its roles as part of a restructuring plan.
Estee Lauder reportedly employed about 62,000 employees around the world as of June 30, 2023.
Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
The electronic signature company said in an SEC filing in February that most of the cuts will be in its sales and marketing divisions.
Kena Betancur
The latest reduction announced in February amounts to about 2% of its workforce.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP
In February, Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish sent a memo to employees announcing that 800 jobs — about 3% of its workforce — were being cut.
Deadline obtained the memo less than a month after reporting plans for layoffs at Paramount. The announcement comes on the heels of Super Bowl LVIII reaching record-high viewership across CBS, Paramount+, and Nickelodeon, and Univision.
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Morgan Stanley is laying off several hundred employees in its wealth-management division, the Wall Street Journal reported in February, representing roughly 1% of the team.
The wealth-management division has seen some slowdown in recent months, with net new assets down by about 8% from a year ago. The layoffs mark the first major move by newly-installed CEO Ted Pick, who took the reins from James Gorman on January 1.
Business Wire
Cutbacks part of an operational review at online travel giant Expedia Group are expected to impact 1,500 roles this year, a company spokesperson told BI.
The company's product and technology division is set to be the worst hit, a report from GeekWire said, citing an internal memo CEO Peter Kern sent to employees in late February.
"While this review will result in the elimination of some roles, it also allows the company to invest in core strategic areas for growth," the spokesperson said.
"Consultation with local employee representatives, where applicable, will occur before making any final decisions," they added.
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The cuts at Sony Interactive Entertainment swept through its game-making teams at PlayStation Studios.
Insomniac Games, which developed the hit Spider-Man video game series, as well as Naughty Dog, the developers behind Sony's flagship 'The Last of Us' video games' were hit by the cuts, the company announced on February 27.
All of PlayStation's London studio will be shuttered, according to the proposal.
"Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences – allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways – as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and Mobile, requires a different approach and different resources," PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst wrote.
Hulst added that some games in development will be shut down, though he didn't say which ones.
In early February, Sony said it missed its target for selling PlayStation 5 consoles. The earnings report sent shares tumbling and the company's stock lost about $10 billion in value.
Eugene Gologursky/Stringer/Gr
On February 27, the dating app company announced that it would be reducing its staff due to "future strategic priorities" for its business, per a statement.
The cuts will impact about 30% of its about 1,200 person workforce or about 350 roles, a representative for Bumble told BI by email.
"We are taking significant and decisive actions that ensure our customers remain at the center of everything we do as we relaunch Bumble App, transform our organization and accelerate our product roadmap," Bumble Inc CEO Lidiane Jones said in a statement.
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Electronic Arts is laying off about 670 workers, equating to 5% of its workforce, Bloomberg reported in late February.
The gaming firm axed two mobile games earlier in February, which it described as a difficult decision in a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz.
CEO Andrew Wilson reportedly told employees in a memo that it would be "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry."
Wilson also said in the memo that the cuts came as a result of shifting customer needs and a refocusing of the company, Bloomberg reported.
Sajjad Hussain/Getty Images
IBM's chief communications officer Jonathan Adashek told employees on March 12 that it would be cutting staff, CNBC reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
An IBM spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that the cuts follow a broader workforce action the company announced during its earnings call in January.
"In 4Q earnings earlier this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single-digit percentage of IBM's global workforce, and we expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with," they said.
IBM has also been clear about the impact of AI on its workforce. Last May, IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna said the company expected to pause hiring on roles that could be replaced by AI, especially in areas like human resources and other non-consumer-facing departments.
"I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period," Krishna told Bloomberg at the time.
Mark Lennihan/Associated Press
Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs from its cloud division known as Amazon Web Services, Bloomberg reported on April 3.
The reduction will impact employees on the sales and marketing team and those working on tech for its retail stores, Bloomberg reported.
"We've identified a few targeted areas of the organization we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact," an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.
On March 26, Amazon announced another round of job cuts after the company said it was slashing 'several hundred' jobs at its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions earlier this year to refocus on more profitable products.
"We've identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact," Mike Hopkins, SVP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in January.
This year's cuts follow the largest staff layoff in the company's history. In 2023, the tech giant laid off 18,000 workers.
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Apple has slashed its California workforce by more than 600 employees.
The cuts follow Apple's decision to withdraw from its car and smartwatch display projects.
The tech giant filed a series of notices to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification program. One of the addresses was linked to a new display development office, while the others were for the company's EV effort, Bloomberg reported.
Apple officially shut down its decadelong EV project in February. At the time, Bloomberg reported that some employees would move to generative AI, but others would be laid off.
Bloomberg noted that the layoffs were likely an undercount of the full scope of staff cuts, as Apple had staff working on these projects in other locations.
Representatives for Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside normal business hours.
JOHN THYS / Getty
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a memo to employees Sunday, April 14, at nearly midnight in California, informing them of the company's plan to cut over 10% of its global workforce.
In his companywide memo, Musk cited "duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas" as the reason behind the reductions.
An email sent to terminated employees obtained by BI read: "Effective now, you will not need to perform any further work and therefore will no longer have access to Tesla systems and physical locations."
On April 29, Musk reportedly sent an email stating the need for more layoffs at Tesla. He also announced the departure of two executives and said that their reports would also be let go. Six known Tesla executives have left the company since layoffs began in April.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, said on April 16 that it would be "eliminating several projects" and reducing its workforce by about 5%.
The move — a part of its larger "cost reduction program" — will cost the video game publisher up to $200 million. It's expected to be completed by December 31.
As of March 2023, the company said it employed approximately 11,580 full-time workers.
Getty/Ilya S. Savenok
Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down, the company announced May 2. Along with his departure, the fitness company is also laying off about 400 workers.
McCarthy is leaving his role just two years after replacing John Foley as CEO and president in 2022. Peloton said the changes are expected to reduce annual expenses by over $200 million by the end of fiscal 2025 as part of a larger restructuring plan.
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Xbox is offering some employees voluntary severance packages in May after shutting three units and absorbing a fourth earlier in the month. Microsoft had already made cuts to the division at the start of 2024.
According to Bloomberg, the offers were extended to producers, quality assurance testers, and more staff at Xbox-owned ZeniMax. Others across the Xbox organization were told that more cuts are coming.
Xbox president Matt Booty told staff in a May 8 town hall that the studio closures are part of an effort to free up more resources, Bloomberg reported.
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Careers site Indeed says it will lay off roughly 1,000 employees, or 8% of its workforce, as it looks to simplify its organization.
CEO Chris Hyams took responsibility for "how we got here" in a memo in May but said the company is not yet set up for growth after last year's global hiring slowdown caused multiple quarters of declining sales.
Hyams said the latest cuts will be more concentrated in the US and primarily affect R&D and Go-to-Market teams. That's in contrast to last year's across-the-board reduction of 2,200 workers.
Kena Betancur/VIEWpress via Getty Images
Retail giant Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate jobs and asking remote employees to come to work, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Workers in smaller offices, such as those in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto, are also being asked to move to central locations like Walmart's corporate headquarters in Arkansas or those in New Jersey or California, the Journal reported.
Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Under Armour confirmed it was conducting layoffs in its quarterly earnings report, which was released May 16.
The company said it will pay out employee severance and benefits expenses of roughly $15 million in cash-related and $7 million in non-cash charges this year related to a restructuring plan, with close to half of that occurring in the current fiscal quarter.
"This is not where I envisaged Under Armour playing at this point in our journey," CEO Kevin Plank told investors on the company's full-year earnings call. "That said, we'll use this turbulence to reconstitute our brand and business, giving athletes, retail customers and shareholders bigger and better reasons to care about and believe in Under Armour's potential."
Disney/Pixar
Disney's Pixar Animation Studios is cutting 175 people, about 14% of its staff, Reuters reported.
The cuts started on May 21 as the studio returns to its focus on feature-length movies. Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who was axed in 2022, had increased staff across studios to create more content for the company's streaming service, Disney+.
Pixar cut 75 jobs last year, Reuters previously reported, part of a larger restructuring across Disney.
John Keeble/Getty Images
In a regulatory filing, Lucid Motors said it would lay off about 400 employees as part of a restructuring plan that should be complete by the end of the third quarter.
"I'm confident Lucid will deliver the world's best SUV and dramatically expand our total addressable market, but we aren't generating revenue from the program yet," CEO Peter Rawlinson said in an email to employees obtained by TechCrunch.
The cuts come ahead of Lucid's launch of its first electric SUV later this year. It comes over a year after the California-based company laid off 1,300 employees, TechCrunch previously reported.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Drugstore chain Walgreens is planning to close unprofitable stores over the next three years, according to the Wall Street Journal.
CEO Tim Wentworth told the Journal that Walgreens hoped to limit job cuts by reassigning staff at closing stores to other locations. Walgreens is reviewing about one-quarter of its 8,600 US stores as it decides which to shutter, he said.
Rick Wilking/Reuters
John Deere, maker of the iconic green-and-yellow tractors, is laying off over 600 employees at factories in Illinois and Iowa, the AP reported July 1.
In May, John Deere said sales fell for the third consecutive quarter and projected that the declines would continue in the second half of its fiscal year.
Anton Novoderezhkin\TASS via Getty Images
London-based luxury retailer Burberry is expected to cut hundreds of jobs in the coming weeks, the Telegraph reported July 6.
Employees learned about the cuts in late June when they were told in a Zoom meeting that their roles could be eliminated or that they would need to apply for other jobs, according to the Telegraph.
Chris Helgren/Reuters
Intuit announced on July 10 that it's cutting its workforce by 10%. The layoffs will affect 1,800 employees nationwide, but the company plans to hire 1,800 new employees in "key areas" like engineering, InvestorPlace reports.
The refocus on other areas is following a shift in focus on AI within the company, according to the outlet.
Intuit's stock dropped by 4.01% on July 10 after the company announced the layoffs.
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Tinder and Hinge parent company Match Group said on July 30 that it will reduce about 6% of its global workforce, or about 156 employees, because it is exiting the live streaming business.
Match will be removing the live streaming service in its app Plenty of Fish and will sunset the Hakuna app, which focuses on Korea and Japan.
The reduction in workforce is expected to save the company $13 million in annual costs.
SOPA Images/Getty Images
Disney is making cuts across its TV division, Deadline and Bloomberg reported, to the tune of roughly 140 jobs — or 2% of the staff at Disney Entertainment Television (DET).
Layoffs will impact National Geographic, owned television stations, the marketing and publicity departments, and Freeform, per a source close to the matter, which notes no teams have been eliminated.
While Disney's cable TV business generates billions, it's on the decline, Bloomberg reports, and the company is seeking to cut costs.
Last year, Disney slashed 7,000 jobs across multiple rounds of layoffs as part of a strategy implemented by returning CEO Bob Iger.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Intel plans to cut thousands of jobs in response to a second-quarter earnings slump, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, citing unnamed people familiar with the move.
It was officially announced on Thursday, August 1, as it posted Q2 earnings. The company intends to reduce its workforce by 15% by the end of 2024.
"Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a statement. "Second-half trends are more challenging than we previously expected, and we are leveraging our new operating model to take decisive actions that will improve operating and capital efficiencies while accelerating our IDM 2.0 transformation."
Intel's stock was down following the lackluster earnings.
The layoffs come after the chip maker laid off about 5% of its workforce last year, bringing its head count down to around 124,000, Bloomberg reported.
During the last round of layoffs, announced in October 2022, Intel faced a drop in demand for processors for personal computers and estimated the layoffs would save $10 billion in costs by 2025, per Bloomberg.
Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Eugene Gologursky
Diet program creator WW International, formerly WeightWatchers, plans to lay off employees, it said in an earnings call on August 1.
The company did not specify the number of jobs it will cut. But the layoffs will largely focus on corporate positions, including a 40% cut in roles above and at the vice president level.
The cuts are expected to save the company $60 million, the company's chief financial officer said.
Brandon Bell/Getty
Dell is cutting jobs on its sales team, Bloomberg reported on Monday. It wasn't immediately clear how many jobs Dell planned to eliminate.
In a memo announcing the cuts, company executives said that the choice was part of a restructuring to focus more on selling AI products and data center services, Bloomberg reported.
Dell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI, but a spokesman told Bloomberg: "Through a reorganization of our go-to-market teams and an ongoing series of actions, we are becoming a leaner company."
PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images
Paramount Global is planning to cut about 2,000 jobs ahead of its merger with Skydance Media, CNBC reported.
The company identified $500 million in cost savings as it prepared to join forces with Skydance, totalling about 15% of its US workforce, according to the outlet.
The cuts will begin in a few weeks and will mostly be finished by the end of 2024. Paramount employees in marketing and communications, finance, legal, technology, and other support functions have been targeted, the company said in a Thursday earnings call.
The cuts come about a month after Paramount agreed to merge with Skydance. Paramount shares jumped more than 5% after hours on Thursday.
REUTERS/Mike Blake
In February, networking company Cisco announced it was slashing 5% of its workforce, or upwards of 4,000 jobs, Bloomberg reported.
The company said it was restructuring after an industry-wide pullback in corporate tech spending — which execs said they expect to continue through the first half of the year.
On August 9, Reuters reported that the company will go through a second round of layoffs, slashing around 4,000 jobs, as it shifts attention to areas like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
The cuts are expected to be announced along with earnings on August 14, Reuters reported.
Cisco had about 85,000 employees as of July 2023, per its latest annual filing.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
In August, the owner of Jeep and Dodge announced it is cutting 2,450 factory workers from its Warren Truck assembly plant outside Detroit.
The layoffs come because the company is ending production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck, Stellantis said. These factory cuts came after white-collar jobs were axed earlier this year.
On March 22, the company said it would lay off employees on its engineering, technology, and software teams in an effort to cut costs, CNBC reported.
Stellantis announced plans for another round of layoffs on July 30, according to Bloomberg. The company is offering voluntary buyouts to non-unionized US employees to "assist those interested in pursuing other career options or retirement," Stellantis said in a message seen by Bloomberg.
The job cuts, the total number of which remains unknown, come after a difficult first half of the year, with unit sales sinking by 16% in the US.
Courtesy of Sonos
The audio equipment company said it slashed roughly 100 jobs on Wednesday. The layoffs significantly targeted its marketing division, The Verge reported.
CEO Patrick Spence said in a statement to BI that the company is now focusing on departing employees and "ensuring they have the support they need."
"This action was a difficult, but necessary, measure to ensure continued, meaningful investment in Sonos' product roadmap while setting Sonos up for long term success," Spence said.
Sonos is also reducing some of its customer support offices and will close one in Amsterdam later this year, according to The Verge.
The company previously cut around 7% of its workforce in June 2023, a month after it announced a 24% revenue drop in the second quarter compared to the previous year.
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