More from The tech industry’s layoffs and hiring freezes: all of the news
The layoff comes after reports that the company is doing away with its Just Walk Out cashierless retail tech at its large format stores. GeekWire reports AWS VP Dilip Kumar cited the change in emails about the cuts internally.
As CNBC notes, Amazon has laid off more people since 2022 than at any point in its history. This year, that’s included Twitch and Amazon Health.
Just one day after PlayStation laid off 900 employees (which followed layoffs from Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Discord, Unity, and others), EA announced on Wednesday that it’s cutting 5 percent of workers, which amounts to around 670 roles.
The game publisher also said that it’s “moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry,” allowing it to focus on its own IP, sports, and online communities.
[Electronic Arts]
Wired writes about how tech job interviews have gotten even more demanding after the series of layoffs that rocked the industry these past few years:
Emails reviewed by Wired showed that in one interview for an engineering role at Netflix, a technical recruiter requested that a job candidate submit a three-page project evaluation within 48 hours—all before the first round of interviews.
A Netflix spokesperson said the process is different for each role and otherwise declined to comment.
A similar email at Snap outlined a six-part interview process for a potential engineering candidate, with each part lasting an hour. A company spokesperson says its interview process hasn’t changed as a result of labor market changes.
In a memo obtained by TechCrunch, Mozilla said the company is making a “strategic correction” that will involve “working through a much smaller team to participate in the Mastodon ecosystem.” The company launched its mozilla.social instance last year.
Additionally, Mozilla is shutting down Hubs, its virtual 3D platform initially launched in 2018. Mozilla says the platform’s userbase isn’t “robust enough to justify continuing to dedicate resources” during an “unfavorable shift in demand.” This shift comes just days after Mozilla appointed Laura Chambers as its interim CEO.
After rumors about layoffs emerged last month, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish announced that the company is laying off around 3 percent of staff. In a memo obtained by Deadline, Bakish tells employees the Super Bowl was a “blockbuster event” that “showcased the full power of Paramount.”
Despite this, the future of Paramount remains unclear, as Deadline reports that media companies and private equity firms are looking into acquiring “some or all” of the entertainment giant. CNBC reported last year that Warner Bros. Discovery was in talks to merge with Paramount.
WMG CEO Robert Kyncl -- who thinks you could pay more for Spotify-- revealed the record label will lay off 10 percent of its workforce, or 600 employees. It’s winding down the podcast division behind Rap Radar and Drink Champs, and IMGN Media. It’s also in an “exclusive process” to sell Uproxx and HipHopDX.
Earlier on Wednesday, WMG reported Q1 revenue of $1.75 billion — its highest quarterly revenue since it went public, and net income of $193 million.
▸ Amazon is cutting a “few hundred roles” from healthcare units. It’s not Amazon’s first health cut.
▸ Corsair is permanently closing an entire Origin PC factory in Miami, laying off 55.
▸ DocuSign is cutting approx. 6 percent of its workforce or around 440 jobs.
▸ Drizly, Uber’s defunct alcohol delivery service, is laying off 168 as its HQ closes for good.
▸ Glowforge, laser engraver maker, wouldn’t say how many new layoffs, but has apparently lost half its staff since last summer.
That’s according to data from tech layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi, which recorded 29,995 job cuts across 112 different companies in 2024. The data also includes the 150 layoffs at Zoom that just happened today, too.
The company, which owns financial services like Cash App and Square, is laying off close to 1,000 employees, according to a report from Business Insider. Here’s what Dorsey told employees in a memo seen by BI:
Why is so much happening in one single day?... We decided it would be better to do at once rather than arbitrarily space them out, which didn’t seem fair to the individuals or to the company When we know we need to take an action, we want to take it immediately, rather than let things linger on forever.
Alphabet generated 13 percent more revenue year over year in 2023, according to its fourth-quarter earnings report (PDF) released on Tuesday. You can follow along with execs on the call embedded below, that’s just starting.
The company also said that over the entire year, it spent $2.1 billion on employee-related severance for the layoffs it announced in January 2023. That doesn’t account for the thousand people it let go earlier this month.
CEO Alex Chriss told employees that PayPal is cutting existing jobs and open roles as part of an effort to “right-size” the company, according to a report from Bloomberg. The layoffs will reportedly impact around 2,500 workers.
PayPal is far from the only company in the tech industry to get hit with layoffs this year. Microsoft, Google, eBay, and many others have also been affected.
It seems as if Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch and Call of Duty esports teams are getting hit with layoffs. On the Overwatch side, the entire observation crew has reportedly been let go along with long-time broadcast talent Soe “Soe” Gschwind and Matt “Mr. X” Morello.
On the Call of Duty side, according to a post from Scott Parkin, senior esports operations manager, Blizzard made the CDL team work a major event over the weekend without telling the team if their jobs were safe — only to lay them off on their first day off. It’s unknown if these layoffs are new or part of the 1,900 people let go last week.
While Carvana escaped its seeming plunge into bankruptcy and is now trading for $45 a share, the used car seller now has one fewer competitor. Vroom is technically still around but is now pivoting to just do auto financing and AI analytics for auto retail, laying off 90 percent of the company’s employees as it exits the used auto business.
Around 60 workers in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and places outside the US were laid off at TikTok, according to a report from NPR. The layoffs mainly affect workers on TikTok’s sales and advertising teams and follow a string of job cuts from other tech companies this year, including Google, Amazon, Unity, and Discord.
Update January 23rd, 5:16PM ET: Added updated details about the layoffs.
Behaviour Interactive cut around 45 jobs, according to Kotaku. The studio has confirmed that it did layoffs, saying that it let go less than three percent of the company.
Kotaku has been compiling all of the video game layoffs that have already happened this year. Sadly, there have been a lot.
