Editor’s note: Layoff Watch is a regularly updated report exclusive to WRAL TechWire about job cuts and trends primarily in the high tech sector of the economy.

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Layoffs continue across the country and the globe, even while some employers remain desperate to identify and recruit talented workers.

And that’s occurring in the Triangle, as well, as a top executive at Lenovo said the company would make “workforce adjustments” despite the company continuing to hire for positions based in its North American headquarters in Morrisville.

Beyond the technology sector, other sectors in North Carolina’s economy are showing signs of slowing while simultaneously showing signs of strength overall.

Take the life science sector.

In the Triangle, said Eric Forshee, executive vice president at JLL, the life science sector has slowed somewhat due to macroeconomic conditions.

But, the sector continues to display positive momentum, said Forshee.

“Our market continues to garner outsized interest among biomanufacturers, including companies working on emerging biotechnologies. The overall market fundamentals continue to dive the market forward,” said Forshee.  “The Triangle region benefits from access to quality talent, lower cost real estate, lower cost of living, and quality of life for employees. While there have been layoffs in the sector, which has impacted our local market, the Triangle region is in a great position to weather the storm and continue to grow moving forward.”

Here’s the latest on layoffs in the WRAL TechWire Layoff Watch.

Tech layoffs are accelerating in 2023 – here’s what’s happening

Layoffs keep accelerating

All told, there are 385 technology companies that have announced more than 108,700 job cuts so far in 2023, according to Layoffs.FYI, which tracks tech companies that have made layoffs.

And so far in February, there have been 119 companies that have announced 24,340 layoffs through 10:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to the tracker on Layoffs.FYI.

For the month of January, employers across the United States cut 102,943 jobs, according to a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. released last week.

But tech sector layoffs in January surpassed the mark measured in that report.  According to Layoffs.FYI, there were 267 companies globally that announced layoffs of 84,414 workers in January 2023.

And that shift comes after 2022, when there were 1,013 tech companies that decided to cut jobs in 2022, with at least 153,160 employees laid off, as tracked by Layoffs.FYI.

Despite the strength and resilience of the life science sector in the Triangle, however, the macroeconomic environment could continue to experience change.

So while the companies that have made workforce reduction decisions affecting the region “is not significant enough in terms of actual headcount to cause near term concern given other companies that are hiring,” said Don Alexander, president and managing director of the Raleigh-based life science executive and professional search firm GeneCoda® Executive & Professional Search, in an interview with WRAL TechWire.

“That said, many executives I’ve spoken with at companies here and nationally have about 12-18 months of runway,” explained Alexander.  “If the macro environment does not improve in the next 12 months or so, we will likely experience far more layoffs than what we’ve seen to date.”

Layoff Watch: Tech sector getting slammed in 2023 – should you be concerned?

Latest February layoffs

Here are the latest headlines about layoffs:

Lenovo to make ‘workforce adjustments’ in move to cut costs, a top exec says

Early February layoffs

Layoffs made in the first part of February include:

VinFast: Layoffs, consolidation won’t affect $4B Chatham County plant

January layoffs

  • Jan. 31: NetApp, which maintains a campus in the Triangle, is laying off about 8% of its workforce, nearly 1,000 workers, The Register reported
  • Jan. 31: HubSpot to lay off 500 workers and plans to consolidate, MarketWatch reported
  • Jan. 31: Tech Nation, a startup incubation program tied to Barclays Bank and the government of the United Kingdom, will shut down on March 31, CNBC reported
  • Jan. 31: Workday cuts 525 jobs – but the firm says it didn’t cut them because they’re overstaffed, CNBC reported
  • Jan. 30: Intel will cut about 340 jobs in California, according to a WARN notice filed with the state, reported SF Gate.
  • Jan. 30: Phillips will cut 6,000 jobs globally as the Dutch company’s CEO called 2022 “a very difficult year”
  • Jan. 30: Groupon to lay off additional 500 workers, reported Chicago Business
  • Jan. 30: Arrival increases job cuts to 50% of global staff, about 800 jobs
  • Jan. 27: The publisher of People Magazine will cut 7% of its workforce
  • Jan. 26: SAP will cut thousands of jobs, WRAL TechWire reported
  • Jan. 25: Despite beating earnings expectations, IBM said it would cut jobs and the stock price fell following the company’s earnings report

IBM beats Street and remains upbeat about growth – but will cut jobs

More January layoffs

Mass layoffs, plant closures in NC hit lowest levels in 25 years despite slowing economy

Early January layoffs

 

Scared you will be laid off? Here’s how to prep – or ‘cushion’ – for change

Late December layoffs

Here’s the latest on layoffs, from this week’s edition of the WRAL TechWire Layoff Watch, which tracks job cuts and layoff news dating back to July.

Tech employment climbs for 25th straight month – but layoffs are surging

Early December layoffs

Layoffs continued to sweep across the Triangle and the nation in the early part of December, despite the coming winter holidays.

  • Dec. 12: Cisco begins to lay off workers, including in Research Triangle Park
  • Dec. 9: Lenovo is conducting layoffs, but denies severity
  • Dec. 9: N-able is cutting jobs even as it continues to hire in the Triangle
  • Dec. 9: Former Twitter employees are suing the company due to mass layoffs
  • Dec. 7: Hayward Industries will lay off 57 workers in Forsyth County
  • Dec. 5: PepsiCo will lay off “hundreds” of workers, the Wall Street Journal reports
  • Dec. 5: Pinterest will lay off workers, including some of its recruiters, The Information reports
  • Dec. 5: Cycling app company Strava will lay off about 15% of its workforce, according to an industry publication
  • Dec. 2: Amazon layoffs could be larger than expected, a report claims
  • Dec. 1: Amazon CEO on layoffs:  “We just felt like we needed to streamline our costs”
  • Dec. 1: Laid off workers may still be in demand for open jobs at small and mid-sized companies

Layoffs surge in tech – but not in ‘diversified’ North Carolina (so far)

Late November layoffs

Here’s the latest, from this week’s edition of the WRAL TechWire Layoff Watch which tracks job cuts and layoff news dating back to July.

Layoff fallout spills to LinkedIn: News feeds are filling up with job hunts

Early November layoffs

  • Nov. 10: Science 37, which moved its headquarters to RTP last year, will cut 90 employees, disclosing it during reporting quarterly earnings.  The news was reported by the Triangle Business Journal on Monday.
  • Nov. 10: Juul Labs, which has a presence in Durham, will lay off 400 workers
  • Nov. 9: Redfin will shut down RedfinNow, the company’s instant buying program that only recently became active in North Carolina, and will cut nearly 900 jobs across the company.
  • Nov. 9: Meta will lay off 11,000 workers.  Later, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took accountability for the job cuts.
  • Nov. 8: Facing layoffs?  Here’s what to know.
  • Nov. 7: Meta will cut thousands of jobs, according to multiple media reports
  • Nov. 7: Tech layoffs and hiring freezes are casting a shadow on the US economy
  • Nov. 4: Twitter began to lay off workers, with an estimated 3,700 workers affected by the layoffs
  • Nov. 4: Layoffs also hit Stripe, Chime, Opendoor, and more
  • Nov. 4: Apple will implement a hiring freeze for corporate workers.
  • Nov. 3: Lyft will cut 13% of its workforce, about 700 workers
  • Nov. 3: Amazon announces it will ‘pause’ on new hires for corporate roles
  • Nov. 3: American Merchandising Specialists laying off NC workers amidst national job cuts

Report: Apple is the latest tech giant to implement hiring freeze

Late October layoffs

  • Oct. 27: Elon Musk completed the purchase of Twitter, and reportedly ordered job cuts, immediately, including the firing of three senior executives.
  • Oct. 27: Automotive supplier GKN is closing its Sanford facility and will lay off 47 workers
  • Oct. 27: Credit Suisse will cut thousands of jobs in a “radical” restructuring effort.
  • Oct. 26: Life science firm Medicago will cut 62 workers in a restructuring move.
  • Oct. 26: Zillow laid off 300 workers in order to focus on technology, with layoffs impacting Zillow Offers advisors, sales and back-end staff at Zillow Home Loans and Zillow Closing services, and other teams, TechCrunch reported.  Zillow previously shut down Zillow Offers in the Triangle.
  • Oct. 20: U.K. company Arrival, which operates its U.S. headquarters in Charlotte, disclosed in a statement ahead of its earnings report next month that the company will “restructure its business to focus resources on a family of Van products for the US market.”  The firm announced job cuts, including ones that could impact workers in Charlotte, earlier this year.  (The company has not yet responded to a request for comment from WRAL TechWire about how its announced restructuring plan will impact its North Carolina workforce.)
  • Oct. 19: Delivery company Gopuff, which has a North Carolina footprint and an office in Raleigh, is laying off more workers, Bloomberg reported.  A TechCrunch database notes that the company initially made layoffs in March, more followed in July, and a third round was announced in October, with about 2,200 total layoffs.
  • Oct. 19: Two property technology companies Zeus Living, based in San Francisco and Clever Real Estate, based in St. Louis announced layoffs amidst concerns of a housing market slowdown.

Amazon will ‘pause’ on new hires for corporate roles

Early October layoffs

  • Oct. 14: Beyond Meat lays off nearly one in five workers, or 19% of its workforce, as sales are lower than anticipated and the company is cutting back, according to CNBC.
  • Oct. 12: Salesforce makes job cuts and announces a hiring freeze, according to Protocol
  • Oct. 11: Noom lays off about 10% of its workforce, or about 500 workers, according to TechCrunch, mostly among the company’s coaches, the second-such layoffs this year
  • Oct. 11: Udacity  founder, president, and now executive chairman Sebastian Thrun announced layoffs of 13% of its workforce, or 55 workers, citing “increasing market headwinds.”
  • Oct. 7: Impossible Foods is making layoffs, again, with an estimated 50 workers to get cut, according to SF Gate.  That follows layoffs made earlier this year.
  • Oct. 6: Peloton will – again – lay off hundreds of workers in a move to “save” the company, according to its CEO
  • Oct. 6: Spotify will lay off less than 5% of its podcast staff, cancelling 11 original podcasts, according to a TechCrunch report
  • Oct. 6: The so-called “crypto winter” continues, as Crypto.com will lay off an undisclosed number of workers.  Originally, a report from Ad Age suggested the layoffs could have impacted about 30% of the company’s remaining workforce, after it laid off more than 200 workers earlier in the year, but Tech in Asia reported on October 10 that the company said that was “inaccurate” despite Ad Age reporting that a spokesperson for the company did confirm there had been “targeted job reductions”

Peloton lays off hundreds more workers to ‘save’ the company, CEO says

Late September layoffs

As threat of layoffs grows, which workers are the most vulnerable?

More September layoffs

  • Sept. 26: Cuts at Goldman Sachs
  • Sept. 26: Cuts at Wells Fargo
  • Sept. 22 – Pink Energy will shut down operations, according to a letter sent to all employees that was obtained by WRAL News.  This came hours after a 5 On Your Side report about the company and its difficulties, and following a notice of facility closure and layoffs sent to the North Carolina Department of Commerce on September 12.
  • Sept. 22 – Buy now, pay later company Klarna will make another round of layoffs, four months after the company cut its workforce by 10%, with the new cuts affecting fewer than 100 workers, according to a report from Sifted.
  • Sept. 22 – Even as Google looks to implement cost-cutting moves and its CEO wants employees to be more efficient and productive, it seeks to hire more than 200 workers in the Triangle.
  • Sept. 22 – Kittyhawk, the air taxi company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, will shut down, though a joint project with Boeing will continue.
  • Sept. 21 – Job cuts still sweeping across technology sector, but Meta and Google aren’t likely to call such cuts layoffs, WRAL TechWire reported.
  • Sept. 20 – Real estate firm Compass, which is backed by Softbank to the tune of about $1 billion, will again make layoffs to its technology team, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
  • Sept. 19 – The number of open information technology jobs in North Carolina falls to an eight-month low, according to the latest data from NC TECH

Job cuts hit Facebook; layoffs expand across tech sector, surpassing 42,000

Even More September layoffs

  • Sept. 15 – Amazon confirms to WRAL TechWire that a Durham facility that employs some 400 workers is being shut down, and a spokesperson tells WRAL TechWire that the company does not intend to lay off any workers, as every employee will be given the opportunity to transfer to another Amazon facility.  Meanwhile, a group of Amazon employees who work in a Garner facility continue efforts to form a union.
  • Sept. 14 – TRU Colors, a startup brewery in Wilmington, announced it would shut down, and serial entrepreneur and founder George Taylor explains why.
  • Sept. 14 – The cloud firm Twilio cuts 11% of workers and CEO Jeff Lawson explains why in a letter, noting that the company used an “Anti-Racist” lens in determining which employees would be laid off.
  • Sept. 12 – Coats American, Inc. will close a Hendersonville plant and lay off 51 workers by the end of November, according to a required legal notice sent by the company to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
  • Sept. 12 – Pink Energy, a solar company headquartered in the Charlotte area, announced it would lay off 500 workers a few months after laying off 600 workers, with the CEO citing faulty equipment as the cause.

Pendo lays off about 5% of workforce, including workers in Raleigh

Early September layoffs

  • Sept. 8 – Avaya, with headquarters in Durham, announced it would reduce its workforce in order to lower costs to “position Avaya as a more agile and innovative organization,” the company’s new CEO told WRAL TechWire in a statement.  The number of layoffs is not known; but the company allocated $11 million to be used to cover costs associated with laying off workers, as WRAL TechWire reported in August.
  • Sept. 7 Pendo layoffs affect 45 workers, less than 5% of its workforce, with half of those layoffs occurring in the company’s Raleigh headquarters location.  WRAL TechWire confirmed the layoffs on September 12.
  • Sept. 2 – The latest data on the employment situation in the United States showed that the pace of job growth slowed in August but the economy added more jobs than expected during the month, a preliminary total of 315,000, though the unemployment rate increased as more people began to look for work and the labor force participation rate increased as well.
  • Sept. 1 Unemployment benefits claims fell, data showed.

UNC economist: More people joining labor force is key to a ‘soft landing’ for economy

August tech layoffs

Here’s a list of some of the layoffs that may affect North Carolina workers that occurred in August:

  • Aug. 31 – Snapchat lays off about 20% of its global workforce of 6,400 workers.
  • Aug. 29 – Keter, US, Inc. will lay off 68 workers in Stanley “due to changing business needs at the facility.”
  • Aug. 29 – 67 employees at UNC Rockingham Hospital in Eden face job loss
  • Aug. 29 – Pandemic ‘winners’ including Peloton, Wayfair, Netflix, Zoom… are now losers
  • Aug. 26 – Novartis to close Wilson plant, affecting 240 workers.
  • Aug. 25 – Better, which has an office in Charlotte, makes its fourth round of layoffs in 2022 according to TechCrunch.  Those four rounds of layoffs followed a mass layoff of 900 workers via a Zoom meeting in December 2021.
  • Aug. 25 – Outdoor furniture manufacturer Keter will lay off 68 workers from a Gaston County facility, according to a notice filed with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
  • Aug. 25 – Amazon will shut down the hybrid virtual and in-home care service, Amazon Care
  • Aug. 25 – Fewer Americans filed for unemployment benefits than the prior week, but the four-week average rose, the Associated Press reported.
  • Aug. 22 – Ford announces layoffs of 3,000 white collar workers, CNN Business reported.

Troubled tech firm Avaya – HQ in Durham – is laying off workers

 More August layoffs

NC’s economy takes a $1B hit in project cancellation – fifth announced this year

Even more August tech layoffs

  • Aug. 4 – Robinhood will make layoffs of 23% of its workforce, a few months after slashing 9% of workers.  This includes laying off 82 workers in Charlotte and closing the company’s office facility there, at which it had promised to hire nearly 400 workers not more than 18 months ago
  • Aug. 4 – Walmart will cut 200 corporate jobs, according to a CNN report
  • Aug. 4Jobless benefit applications are again on the rise, according to the U.S. Labor Department, which is a sign that more layoffs are occurring
  • Aug. 2 – Job openings have plummeted since the last monthly survey, according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the lowest since September 2021
  • Aug. 1 – Oracle reportedly to lay off thousands of workers

NC tech leaders grow more pessimistic about economy; 17.5% have implemented hiring freeze

Layoffs announced in July

  • July 29 – Cargo services firm in Charlotte cutting 154 workers
  • July 27 – The latest survey results from NC TECH show that 1.6% of surveyed companies have laid off, considered making layoffs, or furloughed workers, and another 17.5% have already implemented a hiring freeze.
  • July 27 – Automaker Rivian will lay off about 6% of its workforce, the founder and CEO sent in an email to employees (TechCrunch report.)
  • July 26 – Layoffs at Shopify, with approximately 10% of global workforce slashed

Layoffs still keep coming despite better-than-expected jobs report

Other reports, tech layoffs

More on layoffs announced earlier this year:

  • Invitae announced it planned to lay off as many as 1,000 workers globally and Arrival, with a North American headquarters in Charlotte, announced it could cut 30% of its staff in the coming months.  They’ll be making additional announcements in the coming weeks.
  • Microsoft, which as recently as last month, told WRAL TechWire that it was hiring for hundreds of positions locally in the Triangle, has now also announced that it will cut hundreds of jobs.  The firm is still hiring in North Carolina, according to the latest WRAL TechWire Jobs Report, though it does shows a drop off in the number of openings locally at the firm compared to earlier this year.
  • Peloton, which had something of its own pandemic boom and bought a North Carolina company previously, announced it would no longer manufacture its own stationary exercise bicycles, and would lay off some 600 workers. (Editor’s Note: This was the first announcement from Peloton; the second announcement came later in the summer.)
  • And Biogen, which has a big presence in RTP, announced layoffs in a move to reduce costs last month, as well.
  • Durham technology startup Adwerx announced it would lay off 40 workers, citing “macroeconomic uncertainty.”

Retention, retraining workers becomes focus for many employers in changing job market

More Triangle tech layoffs coverage

More NC layoffs as Coats American to close Hendersonville facility, lay off 51 workers

North Carolina solar company lays off 500; CEO blames faulty equipment

Snapchat is latest tech firm to cut jobs: 20% of global workforce

More layoffs: Wayfair is cutting 5% of its global workforce

Genetics firm Invitae, with Morrisville facility, to lay off more than 1,000 workers

Multiple reports outline Oracle’s decision to lay off thousands of workers

Layoffs hit Microsoft: Tech giant says hundreds of workers to be let go

 

Job cuts at Biogen, which has big RTP presence, help drug giant reduce costs 40%

More layoffs in NC – Medline closing Salisbury facility, will cut nearly 100 workers

Automotive manufacturer to close China Grove plant, lay off 81 workers

Layoffs hit Microsoft: Tech giant says hundreds of workers to be let go

Peloton, which had plans for big NC plant, will stop making bikes; 600 to lose jobs