The tech layoff contagion that began last year in San Francisco is now rippling around the world.
Just days before First Citizens Bank cut 500 positions at Silicon Valley Bank, thousands of jobs were slashed from China’s 58.com, the U.K.’s Vodafone and Canada’s Shopify.
In another global move, Ireland-based Accenture cut 549 jobs in Austin that were based on a campus of Facebook parent Meta.
Around the U.S., Oracle announced layoffs at its recent Cerner acquisition in Missouri, Sabre cut jobs in Texas and Qualcomm reduced staff in San Diego.
In total, 13 major layoff announcements cut 35,000 jobs around the world during May.
In the San Francisco Bay area, major layoff announcements seemed to slow in May. In addition to the SVB cuts, LinkedIn announced it would eliminate 716 positions, making it the largest cut of May to date.
A look at the list of the largest layoffs of 2023 finds three of the year’s top 10—Google, Meta and Salesforce—are based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As of May 24, 73 layoff announcements have cut more than 500 positions, resulting in 188,000 jobs eliminated so far in 2023.