This year’s large layoffs by computer businesses have topped the levels seen during the 2008-2009 Great Recession, which began with the failure of Lehman Brothers. According to data from worldwide outplacement and career transitioning agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas, tech companies laid off approximately 65,000 employees in 2008, and a similar amount of individuals lost their jobs in 2009.

In comparison, 965 technology businesses globally lay off more than 150,000 workers this year, exceeding the Great Recession levels of 2008-2009. The tech layoffs, led by businesses like Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, Salesforce, and others, are expected to intensify early next year due to persistent worldwide macroeconomic conditions.

According to a MarketWatch report, layoffs are part of a tech firm’s strategy to remain viable into 2023 and beyond.

According to data from layoffs. FYI, a crowdsourced database of tech layoffs, 1,495 tech companies have laid off 246,267 employees since the start of Covid-19, but 2022 has been the worst year for the tech sector, and early 2023 could be much worse.

As of mid-November, about 73,000 workers in the US tech sector have been thrown off as a result of large layoffs spearheaded by firms such as Meta, Twitter, Salesforce, Netflix, Cisco, Roku, and others.

In India, almost 17,000 tech workers have been laid off. Amazon and PC and printer giant HP Inc have entered the worldwide layoff season, with plans to lay off more than 20,000 and up to 6,000 people, respectively, in the coming days.

Meta, a networking company, has begun laying off roughly 4,000 people worldwide. Google is purportedly preparing for major layoffs early next year, and Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly given no assurances to concerned Google employees that this will not occur.