Tech Stocks Hit New Records as Tech Layoffs Rise Amid AI Hiring Sprees

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNBC:The S&P 500 is trading at a record and the Nasdaq is at its highest in two years. Alphabet shares reached a new pinnacle on Thursday, as did Meta and Microsoft, which ran past $3 trillion in market cap. Don't tell that to the bosses. While Wall Street cheers on Silicon Valley, tech companies are downsizing at an accelerating clip. So far in January, some 23,670 workers have been laid off from 85 tech companies, according to the website Layoffs.fyi. That's the most since March, when almost 38,000 people in the industry were shown the exits. Activity picked up this week with SAP announcing job changes or layoffs for 8,000 employees and Microsoft cutting 1,900 positions in its gaming division. Additionally, high-valued fintech startup Brex laid off 20% of its staff and eBay slashed 1,000 jobs, or 9% of its full-time workforce... Earlier in the month, Google confirmed that it cut several hundred jobs across the company, and Amazon has eliminated hundreds of positions spanning its Prime Video, MGM Studios, Twitch and Audible divisions. Unity said it's cutting about 25% of its staff, and Discord, which offers a popular messaging service used by gamers, is shedding 17% of its workforce... Investors lauded the cost-cutting measures that companies put in place last year in response to rising inflation, interest rates hikes, recession concerns and a brutal market downturn in 2022. Even with an improving economic outlook, the thriftiness continues. Layoffs peaked in January of last year, when 277 technology companies cut almost 90,000 jobs, as the tech industry was forced to reckon with the end of a more than decade-long bull market. Most of the rightsizing efforts took place in the first quarter of 2023, and the number of cuts proceeded to decline each month through September, before ticking up toward the end of the year. One explanation for the January surge as companies budget for the year ahead: They've learned they can do more with less... Nigel Vaz, CEO of consulting firm Publicis Sapient, told CNBC that some companies are probably looking at the boon that Meta and Salesforce got after their hefty cost-cutting measures last year... At the large publicly traded companies, there's an "intense focus" on profitability, margins and cost cutting, said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, which tracks trends across the tech sector. CNBC emphasizes that layoff numbers are much lower than last year, according to the CEO of the company that owns the tech-recruiting site Dice - and that the layoffs aren't limited to the tech industry. But the article also argues that "AI demand is so great that some tech companies are cutting headcount in parts of the business to invest more heavily in developing AI products." (SAP specifically said its restructuring aimed to boost "focus on key strategic growth areas, in particular Business AI.") And elsewhere CNBC writes that "As tech firms prioritize investments into artificial intelligence and go on a hiring spree, other segments are likely to see layoffs continue into 2024, according to industry experts."

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