In March I wrote I thought more layoffs would be coming to technology companies. So far that has been wrong, despite a weaker economy. Salesforce even started hiring again.
Likely a coincidence, but now both LinkedIn and Stack Overflow are cutting staff. But it is to early to say that technology companies are going back into layoff mode.
LinkedIn is cutting about 3% of staff, so it could be an annual performance culling/organization optimization more than significant layoffs.
Stack Overflow is cutting 28% of jobs, which is a significant. They seem to be more impacted by developers using AI than most, so it might be somewhat company specific. And the staff reduction follows some pretty quick hiring in the last few years.
Likely not a coincidence that it’s happening just before earnings season is kicking off at least as it can signal decisiveness and that a company is taking actions if numbers are anticipated to come in slow(er). Also – Q3 is an interesting quarter where mental focus in the forward looking statements is starting to shift a bit towards next year rather then 2023. Just a thought…
Likely not a coincidence with Q3 reports and planning for 2024 coming up.