By 
As Elon Musk’s xAI just laid off at least 500 employees tasked with training Grok, the wave of mass layoffs in the global tech sector shows no sign of cooling down.
RELATED: Google’s suspected layoffs could push tech sector job cuts to 250K by the end of 2025
This applies even to high-growth companies working in innovation-led industries such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. To track the widespread trend of trimming headcount, RationalFX has released its updated report on the layoffs happening in the tech sector since the beginning of 2025.
Pinpointing companies laying off employees
To identify the companies laying off the most employees right now, the team at RationalFX aggregated layoff announcements sourced from the U.S. WARN notices, the job portal TrueUp, TechCrunch and the Layoffs.fyi layoff tracker since the beginning of 2025. The full list of tech companies ranked by the number of laid-off employees can be accessed in Google Drive via this link.
Latest figures show that at least 166,387 employees in the tech sector have been laid off since the beginning of the year. American companies have slashed over 118 thousand positions, or roughly 71% of all announced layoffs by tech firms around the world. The most significant mass layoffs this year come from tech giants Intel (33,900), Microsoft (19,215), and TCS (12,000).
10 tech companies top the list
These are the 10 tech companies with the most significant mass layoffs since January 2025:
- Intel – At the end of 2024, Intel had roughly 109,000 employees. By the end of 2025, it plans to reduce its total workforce to 75,000, which means it is laying off roughly 33,900 employees this year.
- Microsoft – In several waves of layoffs, the largest ones being in April (around 6,000 layoffs) and in July (9,000 layoffs), Microsoft has slashed at least 19,215 positions in 2025. The company said it needed to implement organizational changes, and for its new corporate structure, it had removed layers of management from all teams and offices.
- TCS – India’s IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has reportedly laid off approximately 12,000 employees this year in a broader trend of Indian companies cutting costs and aggressively implementing automation and artificial intelligence technologies.
- Panasonic – Another major tech company to announce corporate restructuring and consolidation of operations is Panasonic. The Japanese electronics manufacturer said in May 2025 that it would be cutting 10,000 positions, with roughly half in Japan and the other half overseas.
And 5 more
- IBM – One of the companies slashing jobs due to automation in 2025 is IBM. The American company is using AI to automate tasks previously done by HR personnel, such as handling employee inquiries and analyzing spreadsheets. So far in 2025, IBM has laid off around 9,000 workers.
- STMicro – Earlier this year, European chip maker STMicro announced it would be cutting 5,000 positions over the next three years. Governments in several countries, including Italy, however, are now opposing the mass layoffs.
- Salesforce – In February, Salesforce started trimming positions while simultaneously hiring for its AI projects, most notably the Agentforce platform. Around 1,000 employees were affected, but the replacement of employees by AI did not stop there. In September, the company laid off around 4,000 workers.
- Meta – Following substantial layoffs in 2022 (around 11,000) and 2023 (10,000), and smaller cuts in 2024, Facebook parent company Meta has continued its policy to achieve effectiveness by trimming another 3,720 employees. The majority of the latest layoffs have been performance-based, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- Amazon – 2025 layoffs at Amazon started in early January when the company parted ways with 200 employees at its Fashion and Fitness group. Soon after that, it closed all its warehouses in Quebec, Canada, leaving around 1,900 workers jobless. So far in 2025, Amazon has cut at least 3,350 positions.
- Oracle – Larry Ellison’s Oracle is among the latest tech companies to focus its business on cloud technology and artificial intelligence. In August and September, the software giant laid off more than 3,000 employees as part of this strategic shift, with the news reportedly brought to some workers via 20-minute Zoom meetings.
Other highlights from the report
- Since January 2025, 166,387 employees in the tech sector have been laid off globally with Intel, Microsoft, and TCS slashing the most jobs overall.
- American companies have cut 118,151 roles, or roughly 71% of all announced layoffs by tech firms around the world. Among them are some of the largest companies by market capitalization, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle.
- We estimated that of 166,387 layoffs in 2025, 37,702 were directly related to implementation of artificial intelligence and automation tools by businesses. Many companies are now replacing human employees with AI but few would publicly admit it.
‘The tech sector has shed more than 166,000 jobs so far in 2025, a striking signal of both cyclical pressures and structural change. While broader economic headwinds like tighter capital markets and slower growth play a role, AI adoption is increasingly cited as a driver. Companies are streamlining operations, automating routine tasks, and rebalancing their workforces toward AI engineering and data infrastructure. In some cases, entire roles in customer service, coding, or back-office support are being replaced by AI-driven systems. Rather than a short-term correction, these layoffs suggest a longer-term realignment of the industry around automation and advanced technologies.’
– comments Alan Cohen, data analyst at RationalFX.
These conclusions were made based on layoff announcements, WARN notices, and independent layoff reports between January 1 and August 14, 2025. More information on the tech sector layoffs, the underlying reasons for job reductions, and our complete research methodology can be found in the full report. The raw dataset is also available on Google Drive at the following link. Feel free to use the data or graphics, provided proper attribution is given with a link to the original source.
