Layoffs surge in tech: More than 100,000 jobs cut in 2025 so far

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Big quote: As Frank Herbert writes in Dune, "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

We've now entered the second half of the year, and tech-related layoffs have already skyrocketed past the 100,000 mark. The Bridge Chronicle has compiled a list of the most outstanding mass layoffs announcements from tech companies so far, with the downsizing expected to hit rock bottom by the end of 2025.

So far, Intel appears to have the most aggressive job-cutting plan of the year. The US chipmaker recently announced 24,000 job cuts, with even more layoffs expected in the near future. By the end of 2025, "Chipzilla" is projected to have let go of 75,000 core employees worldwide. The company is in a precarious position, facing a continuing decline in PC CPU sales and a strategic pivot toward an AI-focused business model.

AI technology is also one of the main drivers behind Microsoft's decision to significantly reduce its workforce. The Redmond-based corporation has so far laid off 15,000 employees, affecting several divisions including cloud, gaming, and hardware.

In a recently disclosed company memo, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attempted to address the "painful" job reductions using convoluted corporate lingo that sounded like it came straight from a heartless (and brainless) chatbot.

Rumors suggest Nadella is deeply obsessed with GenAI, reportedly using Copilot for both personal and professional purposes. Microsoft's attempt to justify its latest layoffs is particularly hard to defend, given the company's strong financial performance and lack of any money-related issues.

Microsoft slammed for awful AI-generated Xbox job post, weeks after laying off 9,000 workers

Other major tech companies – including Meta, Google, Amazon, and Cisco – have also fired or are in the process of firing thousands of employees, reallocating funds to build newer, more powerful AI models and capitalize on the agentic AI hype before it potentially collapses under its own weight.

Massive funding efforts to commercialize AI aren't the only factors behind the ongoing layoffs. Big Tech went on a hiring spree during the pandemic a few years ago, betting on a remote work boom and surging demand for tech products – trends that never fully materialized.

Much of that bloated workforce is now being trimmed. Additionally, a surge in geopolitical tensions and the persisting uncertainty around Trump-era tariffs are threatening future revenue prospects and prompting further cost-cutting measures.

Tech layoffs show AI's impact extends beyond entry-level roles

In Japanese corporate culture, CEOs are expected to take significant pay cuts to avoid layoffs. Former Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata famously stated that firing employees sacrifices long-term morale for short-term gains. I'm willing to bet my bank's account that no single CEO in the Western tech business would even consider doing something like that.

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Layoffs surge in tech: More than 100,000 jobs cut in 2025 so far

 

[Megalomaniac]

AI is going to decimate middle management and many white collar positions. I am thankful I'll be out of the workforce and retired soon.

 

[Mortyric]

No doubt AI replace human workforce in a lot of industries. AI models are popping up everyday, multiple times a day and several AI companies are even getting put out of business.

As much as we want to reduce the effect it has on employment rate, companies are profit driven and will try to get every penny on the dollar they can, and sadly those that do not layoff will struggle to compete with those that do.

Got to factor in the AI effect when choosing a career or switching to one.

 

[yRaz]

AI is going to decimate middle management and many white collar positions. I am thankful I'll be out of the workforce and retired soon.

The world needs less middle managers. I'm actually in the field running stuff and making sure things are getting done safely and correctly. I love it when someone from the office comes onto a job site thinking they have authority over me and I just tell them to **** off. I'll get a call from HR, tell them to **** off and it'll go to the executives office and the conversation usually goes something like this. "I was overseeing a lift of the million dollar 20 ton HVAC unit in not ideal conditions when some ******* started asking me about if we really needed 24 cement finishers when we did the same job with 20 the week before."

I swear, middle managers are the worst and too many of them are competing for a promotion instead stead of contributing anything of value. This guy drove 3 hours from the office on company time to see if he could "optimize labor expenses.". **** off, we're doing real work, go sit back in your office chair.

Frankly, I love AI replacing middle managers first because middle managers are always trying to get rid of people to lower costs and gain a promotion from doing so.

 

[RudyBob]

When I got laid off from bottling chlorine I got a job setting up pool tables. Ya move along

 

[p51d007]

But but but wasn't it our 46th president or some of his staff that said everyone should learn to code?

 

[Kashim]

But but but wasn't it our 46th president or some of his staff that said everyone should learn to code?

Random-nonsense-guy-says-what?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Something nobody even mentions in these article is that the overwhelming majority of layoffs are hitting marketing, sales, HR, and other soft positions like team leaders that dont actually produce anything do accomplish anything of note. These are the typical positions cut during recession, AI is acting as a multiplier, possibly also as a scapegoat. I fully believe that this is typical recession behavior, and once the economy begins to improve again, many of these positions will end up coming back to correct the constantly malfunctioning AI tools.

The major exception to this is Intel, which is simply the case of a tech company in serious trouble overloaded with debt. Although to be fair, all of them have massive debt. Almost like some of us were calling out the trend of companies taking out huge loans foolishly believing that 0% interest would stay forever, and how this would eventually backfire as it was totally unsustainable. The multi trillion dollar tech boom has largely ended, outside of a handful of AI companies that are burning hundreds of billions trying to find a profit motive.

 

[toooooot]

Sometimes I feel like if it happened much faster, it would actually be for our society. Instead of arguing and slowly trying to make hard but needed changes, we could do them much quicker out of necessity.
For starters, we could ensure the wealthiest actually pay taxes. A system that makes it very hard to avoid taxing. And note, I am not talking of higher taxing, even though it would probably come for all classes if the things get much worse. I would rather have them pay at all. A transparent system that makes the wealthiest pay even if they use 100 of tricks to avoid doing so.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Something nobody even mentions in these article is that the overwhelming majority of layoffs are hitting marketing, sales, HR, and other soft positions like team leaders that dont actually produce anything do accomplish anything of note. These are the typical positions cut during recession, AI is acting as a multiplier, possibly also as a scapegoat. I fully believe that this is typical recession behavior, and once the economy begins to improve again, many of these positions will end up coming back to correct the constantly malfunctioning AI tools.

The major exception to this is Intel, which is simply the case of a tech company in serious trouble overloaded with debt. Although to be fair, all of them have massive debt. Almost like some of us were calling out the trend of companies taking out huge loans foolishly believing that 0% interest would stay forever, and how this would eventually backfire as it was totally unsustainable. The multi trillion dollar tech boom has largely ended, outside of a handful of AI companies that are burning hundreds of billions trying to find a profit motive.

True. However, neural networks are constantly getting better and sooner or later will match or surpass the human mind. Already, look at the progress in the span of two years; in fields "exclusively the domain of humans," such as art and writing, it's on mankind's heels. Likely, further hardware and computer-science advancements will take NNs further: I believe biological computing is the key.

Once the computation-power metric has been solved, coupling AI with robotic bodies will be the next step, and whilst expensive, scale will lower the cost. More human jobs will be affected, causing civil war when the bulk of people are unemployed. There may come a time, when the implementation of consciousness requires some robots to be payed, so in those cases, humans may enter the competition again, furthering Elysium-style elitism. The world may split into human and robot regions, and knowing our disgraceful human history, there will be wars, "fighting against the machines."

In short, there is another species entering existence, and humanity will have to deal with the consequences of that: economic and ethical.

 

[Rumiku]

True. However, neural networks are constantly getting better and sooner or later will match or surpass the human mind. Already, look at the progress in the span of two years; in fields "exclusively the domain of humans," such as art and writing, it's on mankind's heels. Likely, further hardware and computer-science advancements will take NNs further: I believe biological computing is the key.

Once the computation-power metric has been solved, coupling AI with robotic bodies will be the next step, and whilst expensive, scale will lower the cost. More human jobs will be affected, causing civil war when the bulk of people are unemployed. There may come a time, when the implementation of consciousness requires some robots to be payed, so in those cases, humans may enter the competition again, furthering Elysium-style elitism. The world may split into human and robot regions, and knowing our disgraceful human history, there will be wars, "fighting against the machines."

In short, there is another species entering existence, and humanity will have to deal with the consequences of that: economic and ethical.

Mmm, no. I very much doubt the doom saying you speak of. History is ripe with those who claimed the sky will fall each time Humanity progressed into a different age, and yet we still “improvised, adapted, overcame”.

The first problem is that AI is nothing more than a glorified easy bake oven, in comparison to actual Human consciousness. A calculator surpassed Humans long ago in processing most equations much more quickly, though it did not replace us. It just shifted the landscape. Some jobs were lost, others gain, new positions created as a result. This is, of course, an overly simplistic example.

The second folly: We cannot even agree nor provide concrete proof of what gives rise to even our own consciousness. The greatest we will see is efficient algorithms working in tandem to “mimic”, perhaps convincing (eventually), Human consciousness. It is not “if we cannot define it we cannot create it”. No, it’s simply that an inorganic will not rise to this uniquely organic trait. “Mimic” will be, at best, the end goal. Skynet will never happen as an AGI; only as a (slim possibility) well programmed “evil” mimic.

Thirdly, as TheInsaneGamer pointed out, we see AI rise exponentially when budgets fall, as a cost cutting measure. Companies have attempted to go “full retard” and be all in, only to have the rude awakening that AI simply cannot replace humans in total.

In the meantime, I rather enjoy nature correcting itself of the middle management sections.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Mmm, no. I very much doubt the doom saying you speak of. History is ripe with those who claimed the sky will fall each time Humanity progressed into a different age, and yet we still “improvised, adapted, overcame”.

The first problem is that AI is nothing more than a glorified easy bake oven, in comparison to actual Human consciousness. A calculator surpassed Humans long ago in processing most equations much more quickly, though it did not replace us. It just shifted the landscape. Some jobs were lost, others gain, new positions created as a result. This is, of course, an overly simplistic example.

The second folly: We cannot even agree nor provide concrete proof of what gives rise to even our own consciousness. The greatest we will see is efficient algorithms working in tandem to “mimic”, perhaps convincing (eventually), Human consciousness. It is not “if we cannot define it we cannot create it”. No, it’s simply that an inorganic will not rise to this uniquely organic trait. “Mimic” will be, at best, the end goal. Skynet will never happen as an AGI; only as a (slim possibility) well programmed “evil” mimic.

Thirdly, as TheInsaneGamer pointed out, we see AI rise exponentially when budgets fall, as a cost cutting measure. Companies have attempted to go “full retard” and be all in, only to have the rude awakening that AI simply cannot replace humans in total.

In the meantime, I rather enjoy nature correcting itself of the middle management sections.

Respectfully, I disagree. Today, AI may be an "easy bake oven" but tomorrow that may change. We have not cracked consciousness yet; that doesn't mean we will never. Once its mechanism is defined, it can be emulated; the brain doesn't work by magic but according to the rules of physics. Animals, of which we are a branch, possess sentience to varying degrees.

The difference between organic and inorganic is one of implementation, similarly to a prosthetic limb. One may say that, in today's LLMs, a primitive language faculty is being virtualised across GPUs. Tomorrow, that same mechanism could run on a biological computer, which the brain is. Couple that language faculty to others important to mind, such as state, memory, real-time training, along with consciousness circuitry once it's reverse engineered, and that will be a mind virtualised on a system. Likely, the developers could switch from the old-school CPUs and GPUs to the biological one, and the workings will be the same but the performance different. Similarly, when AMD and Intel emulate a CPU or GPU before taping it out.

Middle management may be losing their jobs, but others are too. I know, being one of them, and am neither in management, sales, nor HR. As for my "doom saying," that is speculation I acknowledge; I'm not saying that's going to happen.