20 Biggest Companies Laying Off in 2023

Ty Haqqi
10 min read

In This Article:

In this article, we will be taking a look at the 20 biggest companies laying off in 2023. To skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to see the 5 biggest companies laying off in 2023.

Layoffs are unfortunately a part of life, especially in today's world, where cutthroat competition is higher than ever before, and investor demands are sky-high. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, most companies laid off a large percentage of their employees, especially in the travel industry, as travelling was more or less completely banned by most countries. In the U.S. alone, by April 2020, the number of people who were temporarily laid off increased by 16 million to 18 million, an unprecedented figure, and airlines particularly had to lay off tens of thousands of employees. Even now, despite tourism returning to almost pre-Covid numbers, the most profitable airlines in the world are struggling to turn over a profit.

However, after the economy picked up once the threat of Covid-19 diminished, workers gained more power and so began the Great Resignation, where employees started to voluntarily resign and look for better opportunities amid wage stagnation despite a cost of living increase. Now, most analysts believe that the tide from the Great Resignation has stemmed, and companies are once again more powerful, as seen by the biggest companies laying off in 2023.

20 Biggest Companies Laying Off in 2023

A utility employee connecting wires at a power station in order to distribute electricity to customers.

It seems counterproductive for companies to lay off a significant number of their staff, especially when profitable, but that's  the trend we've been seeing, especially since 2022. This is especially true in the tech industry which ramped up hiring during the pandemic as tech companies boomed and their share price reached record highs, but immediately cut back when the going got tough in 2022. Some of the biggest tech companies in the world are also among the biggest companies laying off in 2023 and tens of thousands of headcount were cut by Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), not to mention Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). However, considering the incredible share price rises most tech companies have seen, tech companies will likely start to increase hiring towards the end of 2023 and start of 2024, according to several analysts.

One of the main reasons behind companies resorting to layoffs is the traditional idea that is saves money in the long run. Undoubtedly, salaries and wages are one of the biggest expenses of any company, especially those operating in the retail or consultancy segments but also in areas such as tech and finance. So if a company's turnover is low and its operating profit isn't close to hitting analyst expectations or targets, companies decide to layoff staff. While this does have short-term benefits including of course direct savings, the intangible adverse effects of layoffs can more than offset these savings, such as loss of knowledge, bad publicity, higher turnover and cost of training a new employee. Also, in today's world where corporations are starting to be held more accountable for their decisions, mass layoffs are inviting even more scrutiny for such companies. The destruction of trust for a company can have extremely negative consequences, and in 2022, more than 85% of respondents to Edelman's 2022 Trust Barometer stated that job loss was their biggest concern.

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