After a dramatic spike in layoffs in 2022 and 2023, a handful of tech companies are trimming staff once again.  

Meta cut roughly 5% of its staff this week, letting go of more than 3,000 employees. Workplace management software company Workday laid off about 1,750 employees, or 8.5% of the staff, earlier this month. Google is offering voluntary buyouts to workers in its platforms and devices unit. 

Economists say the most recent wave of job cuts isn't a sign of trouble ahead. Tech layoffs are down from recent years, and it’s normal to see companies cut staff during the start of the new year as companies reassess priorities, they told USA TODAY.  

For tech workers who find themselves without a job, though, economists say they face a more challenging hiring environment than colleagues laid off in recent years.

“There is little doubt that the environment for job seekers is more difficult today than it was a few years ago,” Dante DeAntonio, labor economist at Moody’s Analytics, told USA TODAY. “However, the pace of hiring appeared to stabilize in the second half of 2024, and sentiment surveys signal that businesses are slightly more optimistic about hiring moving forward.” 

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Meta layoffs:Meta carrying out performance-based layoffs starting Monday, cutting 5% of staff

Why are big tech companies laying people off?

The early years of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a massive hiring spree in tech, fueled in part by shifting consumer spending habits amid lockdowns. But companies reversed course in 2022 as inflation and interest rates spiked. Meta and Amazon, for instance, laid off 11,000 and 10,000 workers that year, respectively, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech layoffs since early 2020. 

“People did return to in-person gyms and concerts, and they did stop playing video games as much. They did go back to stores,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at online jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter. “There was this whole culture shift from one of risk-taking and growth and experimentation to one of intensely conservative, cautious decision-making.” 

Tech layoffs have continued since then, but at a slower pace. Layoffs.fyi tracked just under 2,500 tech employees laid off in the first month of 2025 compared with roughly 34,000 in January 2024. Job cuts picked up in February, but Roger Lee, the website's creator, expects rates to level off as the year progresses.

“I believe we're seeing some seasonality right now,” Lee said in an emailed statement. “January and February are natural times for workforce reductions since they follow annual budgeting.” 

Pollak said layoffs may not mean a company is reducing headcounts, but rather restructuring and reprioritizing its workforce. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, said layoffs would allow the company to bring in new people to help the company navigate an “intense year” focused on artificial intelligence and other technologies.  

“Tech companies are going to shift, not shrink, in 2025. That’s my prediction,” Pollak said.  

Hiring rates below prepandemic levels:Workers say it's a 'tough' time to find jobs

Former tech workers face a more difficult hiring environment

Though mass layoffs aren’t new for tech, economists say, recently laid-off employees face a more challenging hiring environment.

In late 2022 and early 2023, which saw hundreds of thousands of tech jobs cut, the hiring rate bounced between 3.8% and 4.1%. As of December, hiring rates slipped to 3.4%.  

Federal data shows solid job growth and low unemployment in recent months, but diving into jobs data shows tech performed worse than initially estimated, according to Pollak. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows tech subindustries lost jobs in 2023 and 2024 after initial estimates showed slow growth – performing worse than in the first months of the COVID-19 recession.

“Companies have been focusing very heavily on optimizing their operations and becoming as lean and efficient as possible,” Pollak said. "This is a very broad, industrywide story. It’s not just at big-name companies."

Employers optimistic for 2025

The good news for laid-off workers who want to remain in tech? Some experts are expecting hiring to heat up this year. 

ZipRecruiter has tracked increased optimism among employers, Pollak said. Nearly two-thirds of employers said easing inflation, stabilizing interest rates and a steady unemployment rate should support headcount growth this year, according to a survey last fall. 

“Employers are pretty upbeat about employment growth in 2025,” she said. “We found tech to be the most bullish of all, so our data is showing something of a turnaround in tech.” 

And while job seekers with a college degree are facing a “harsher reality” with slower hiring rates, certain employment metrics are in a good spot when compared with historical, pre-pandemic data, according to Rachel Sederberg, senior economist and director of research at labor markets analytics firm Lightcast. 

Sederberg pointed to the long-term unemployment rate as one example. As of January, 21.1% of the unemployed U.S. population had been without a job for six months or longer. That’s up from 17.6% in early 2023, but similar to 2018 and 2019 levels. 

"We should be careful to benchmark ourselves on a normal year, not a post-COVID minute where the world was slightly different because we were behaving very differently as consumers,” Sederberg said.