More than 27,000 jobs were slashed in August at companies like Apple, IBM, Intel and Cisco. Intel alone is cutting 15 percent of its workforce while Cisco pivots away from human resources into artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. IBM is also discontinuing all further research and development in China.
Dell Technologies, GoPro, Infineon, ReshaMandhi, Brave and ShareChat are among the many, many other tech companies that announced layoffs this summer, this at a time when inflation is through the roof.
More than 40 tech companies in total are trimming the fat right now. And to date in 2024, this has resulted in more than 136,000 tech workers losing their jobs from 422 different companies.
(Related: Did you know that investors holding top-rated debt backed by commercial real estate [CRE] suffered losses this year for the first time since the financial collapse of 2008?)
AI robots replacing human tech workers
Intel's 15 percent workforce slashing is part of the company's $10 billion spending reduction plan for 2025. Intel's second-quarter earnings report and outlook were both very weak with annual revenues falling by $24 billion between 2020 and 2023, a time period during which Intel increased its workforce by 10 percent.
"Intel's revenue growth shortfall is attributed to high costs and low margins, despite our leadership in the CPU chip revolution 25 years ago," commented Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.
Cisco is trimming about 7 percent of its global workforce, or around 6,000 employees. CEO Chuck Robbins says he is still hopeful about the future of the company – just not about the future of its employees who are being replaced by AI robots.
"Cisco is optimistic about rebounding demand for our networking equipment," Robbins said, adding that the company is committing $1 billion for investment into AI startups.
The situation is much the same over at Dell, which is creating a new group devoted solely to AI development. Rumors are circulating about Dell having cut 12,500 employees this year, or around 10 percent of its global workforce, but these are not official numbers.
ReshaMandhi you may not have heard of as it is a fabric startup company based in Bengaluru. ReshaMandhi laid off its entire workforce this past month and is now no longer in existence.
"It's all over for ReshaMandhi," a source familiar with the matter commented. "The company is struggling to pay liabilities and bear operational costs, including salaries, for the past several months."
Brave, a web browser and search engine, trimmed 27 employees across a number of departments. Since Brave only has about 191 employees, the layoffs represent about a 14 percent employee reduction.
ShareChat, a social media company based in Bengaluru, the same place as ReshaMandhi, laid off about 35 people, or about 5 percent of its workforce, following a dismal biannual performance review in August.
Apple is pivoting more into AI these days along with its rivals, which this summer resulted in about 100 employees being let go from its services group, which covers the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore teams. Apple News is now a higher priority than Apple Books.
Prior to this most recent round of layoffs, Apple cut 600 employees from its Special Projects Group and closed a 121-employee AI team in San Diego back in January. As of its last official report, Apple now employs the equivalent of 161,000 full-time employees.
German chipmaker Infineon is planning to let 1,400 people go from its workforce as well as relocated another 1,400 to lower-cost countries. CEO Jochen Hanebeck says "prolonged weak economic momentum and excess inventory levels" are to blame, as is a "slow recovery in target markets."
You won't hear about it on the "news," but the U.S. economy is swirling the drain. Learn more at Collapse.news.
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