Last week, Amazon announced the latest in a series of massive tech layoffs with 30,000 people displaced overnight. The month before, Axios reported on a Senate Democrats report that concluded that up to 100 million jobs could be erased due to AI in the next decade.
100 million jobs.
It’s clear that the workforce in 5 or 10 years will look dramatically different from how it looks today. And unfortunately, layoffs are part one of this transition.
While I haven’t been laid off, I’ve worked at companies early in my career that went through layoffs (media). I also saw firsthand what happened in the last major wave of workforce disruption: the Great Recession. My dad worked at Ford Motor Company for 30 years before losing his job during the auto industry collapse of 2008.
As it turns out, the pattern of layoffs across major tech companies since 2023 looks strikingly similar (in both pace and scale) to what happened in the auto industry leading up to the Great Recession.
In both cases, the layoffs didn’t just increase unemployment; they sent seasoned careerists back into the job market — many of whom haven’t needed to look for new work in a decade or more. This introduced a very different dynamic from the churn of the gig, freelance, or startup worlds, where people enter knowing the risks and expect volatility as part of the deal.
I wanted to see just how close the parallels really were, so I spent the morning digging into the data. Here’s what I found.
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These companies included: BMW, Chrysler, Daimler-Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Nissan, and Volkswagen. There were obviously more layoffs than this during this period, but I focused on just the biggest layoff events.1
Since 2023, the layoffs of nine big tech companies has mirrored the impact of displaced people from the auto industry during the Great Recession.2 These companies are Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Google, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce.
Here’s the breakdown of major layoff events from just these companies over the past few years.
Because the scale of job losses felt so similar, I wanted to see how the timing compared. The chart below tracks the cumulative layoffs in both industries, beginning with each one’s first major layoff event.
As you can see, Big Tech is hitting the same numbers faster. At roughly 1,000 days since the first major layoffs, tech companies have cut 50% more jobs than automakers did before the 2009 crash.
This is an imperfect analysis in many ways.
Obviously, today’s layoffs are not limited to the big players. Startups and smaller tech firms have also been contracting, and other sectors, and layoff are hitting many other industries as well, ranging from consulting and retail all the way to the postal service.
I decided to only focus on the impact of Big Tech companies compared to Big Auto companies because I was curious about the number of so-called “careerists” who have been displaced. In both industries, these big players made big promises to their employees: Generous compensation packages, strong benefits, solid healthcare, and steady paychecks.
For anyone whose parents grew up in Michigan (like mine), working in the auto industry was once the definition of security. And for anyone who came of age during the Internet boom (also me), working at Google, Microsoft, or Amazon carried that same sense of safety. I’ve watched many friends move from the volatility of startups to the stability of these giants. Then they stay for five, ten, even fifteen years.
The trouble is, the longer you stay, the harder it becomes to move. That’s why it was so difficult for my dad to find a new job after his decades at Ford. And it’s why today’s tech layoffs introduce a new kind of complexity into the market. It’s not just that more people are looking for work; it’s that the people being laid off are the ones who deliberately chose security over risk. Now they’re being asked to re-learn how to adapt and build new skills for the AI age. This is hard for anyone, but it’s especially hard when you’re learning something new for the first time…in a very long time.
Maybe this is what it takes to define the modern careerist now. It’s no about longer loyalty to one company, but the ability to keep learning long after the world stops rewarding it. My dad’s generation believed security came from staying put. It seems mine is learning that security comes from staying curious.
For those caught in this latest wave of layoffs, that curiosity may become their most valuable asset, a small spark that lights the way to pivoting toward whatever comes next.
Sources for Automative Layoffs:
https://www.npr.org/2005/06/07/4684372/general-motors-slashing-25-000-jobs-shutting-plantshttps://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna10946664
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/automobiles/daimlerchrysler-is-cutting-6000-whitecollar-jobs.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/15chrysler.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/worldbusiness/27iht-bmw.2.10472089.html
https://www.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/05/ford_plans_involuntary_layoffs.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/feb/09/nissan-recession-jobs
Sources for Tech industry layoffs:
12 comments
I went down a bit of a rabbithole this morning comparing the tech industry layoffs from 2023-25 to the auto industry layoffs of 2005-2009 Some context: My dad was a careerist at Ford Motor Company for 30 years and basically could not recover from the layoffs in 2008 (because he never learned how to change jobs) Today, I'm noticing a similar favor of fear among friends who work at Big Tech companies, many of whom haven't had to think about a new job in 10+ years The thing that is striking to me in both cases is that these layoffs are disproportionately impacting people who chose security or stability over the riskier thing Which means that when these people re-enter the labor market (for the first time in years, if not decades), it's a harder re-calibration. I share more about this in today's post (some charts in casts below) https://hardmodefirst.xyz/what-todays-tech-layoffs-mean-for-the-modern-careerist
I did a little research and found that just 7 of the major auto industry companies were responsible for 166k layoffs during the Great Recession Compare that to today, where just 9 big tech companies have already displaced 170k people (and counting)
The pace is moving faster on tech displacements. At roughly 1,000 days since the first major layoffs, tech companies have cut 50% more jobs than automakers did before the 2009 crash.
Love this line “My dad’s generation believed security came from staying put. It seems mine is learning that security comes from staying curious.”
ngl ChatGPT helped me finesse that one :)
The new safe play is job-hopping retail and customer service call centers.
Man, when I graduated college the secure play was going to big tech. As the gen z generation graduates college, the safe play is actually the small startup.
I think it's largely showing that there is long-term value in career resiliency. Something that we do naturally as tinkerers in emerging tech is a big benefit when it comes to learning how to adapt to changes and market dynamics.
I think part of the issue is how companies sold “loyalty” as safety. People like your dad were never taught to adapt because the system didn’t reward it. Now, tech folks are learning that lesson too, stability doesn’t mean security anymore, it just delays the shock.
Yes. Unfortunately I also think Google and others sucked up a lot of really smart and talented people who now feel totally stuck inside or laid off outside