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BlueWaveNeverEnd

(15,009 posts)
Wed May 20, 2026, 10:56 PM 12 hrs ago

mass layoffs announced in tech sector: Meta (10%), Intuit (17%), Linkedin 500 jobs, Cisco (5%), Amazon

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valley-tech-layoffs-2/4087606/

Thousands of Silicon Valley tech layoffs were announced Wednesday as more companies embrace artificial intelligence.

Meta slashed 8,000 jobs, Intuit cut 3,000 and LinkedIn revealed 500 planned layoffs.

"We're on the cusp of a fundamental restructuring," Joint Venture Silicon Valley CEO Russell Hancock said.

Hancock said bots are indeed taking tech jobs.

"Now they're saying explicitly we're laying people off and the reason is because we have less need of human capital," Hancock said. "AI is making us far more efficient."

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https://www.al.com/news/2026/05/some-of-americas-biggest-companies-are-cutting-jobs-by-the-1000s-in-latest-round-of-tech-layoffs.html

On Wednesday, April 13, Cisco Systems announced cutting roughly 4,000 jobs—less than 5% of its total workforce—alongside record revenue of $15.8 billion.
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mass layoffs announced in tech sector: Meta (10%), Intuit (17%), Linkedin 500 jobs, Cisco (5%), Amazon (Original Post) BlueWaveNeverEnd 12 hrs ago OP
This makes me very anxious. william clinton 12 hrs ago #1
I understand you very well ajie 12 hrs ago #4
A coincidence that these same companies are investing big time in AI and datacenters? OAITW r.2.0 12 hrs ago #2
Eaten alive by their own creation. RandySF 12 hrs ago #3
Intuit, not Inuit. eppur_se_muova 12 hrs ago #5
LOL mr715 11 hrs ago #6
thank you... I will correct BlueWaveNeverEnd 9 hrs ago #12
Software engineer was hard to get in at A&M 5 years ago Melon 10 hrs ago #7
Many of these companies don't have a clue what they're doing fujiyamasan 10 hrs ago #8
COVID was 6 years ago. C Moon 9 hrs ago #11
I've been depositing checks via my phone, and every other check has issues... C Moon 9 hrs ago #9
Is it really AI or is that just a pretext? nuxvomica 9 hrs ago #10
1. This makes me very anxious.
Wed May 20, 2026, 10:59 PM
12 hrs ago

I'm in China, where the job market is extremely competitive, especially for someone who has just graduated from university.

OAITW r.2.0

(32,617 posts)
2. A coincidence that these same companies are investing big time in AI and datacenters?
Wed May 20, 2026, 11:02 PM
12 hrs ago

They want to digitize their operations and do away with their entire workforce. Stockholders are gonna love it. Hell, they won't need pesky coders anymore if they can interface directly with the software.

Melon

(1,709 posts)
7. Software engineer was hard to get in at A&M 5 years ago
Thu May 21, 2026, 12:54 AM
10 hrs ago

It was very high paying and ultra competitive. Now salaries are dropping and students are switching majors. AI is being used extensively in coding.

fujiyamasan

(2,048 posts)
8. Many of these companies don't have a clue what they're doing
Thu May 21, 2026, 01:49 AM
10 hrs ago

Some of the layoffs were due to overhiring during COVID (many were hired and not given clear job functions) and SaaS stock prices have been getting hammered for months (finally starting to make a bit of a recovery), prompting simple and lazy fixes like layoffs hoping to stem the bleeding. Intuit, for example just posted earnings earlier today and tanked after hours. Meta is spending billions in capex with little to show for it. LinkedIn is an absolute cesspool of AI generated slop and inauthenticity.

Anthropic has shown where the real value lies with Gen AI, and that’s definitely with code generation. While some of this is overblown (Anthropic ‘vibe coded’ apps aren’t going to destroy every software company out there), there’s no doubt that not as many coders will be needed. This isn’t to say vibe coding is perfect, but it’s constantly improving and it completely changes how the job is done.

Look, a lot of these folks were coasting making $300k plus a year. In capitalism everyone is expendable. That why my sympathy for these Silicon Valley layoffs is well…limited. They knew the future they were building.

I’m from the Midwest and I saw rounds of layoff after layoff form one industry to another — steel, automotive, etc. I saw a lot of bitching from the same people out west at the time about bailouts too.

C Moon

(13,743 posts)
9. I've been depositing checks via my phone, and every other check has issues...
Thu May 21, 2026, 01:54 AM
9 hrs ago

"cannot read the date" "cannot read the name" on and on.
Never had this problem before. I'm pretty sure it's AI.
One check was even refused by the source bank. I'll bet that was their AI setup.

I guess this is how it will be for a while.

Watch your bills and get receipts for EVERYTHING.

nuxvomica

(14,221 posts)
10. Is it really AI or is that just a pretext?
Thu May 21, 2026, 01:56 AM
9 hrs ago

The company I worked for had several rounds of tech layoffs in the past few years (including my layoff) that they claimed was due to AI but they actually off-shored all the jobs to India, Mexico and Poland. We knew what they were doing because we trained the off-shore personnel. Supposedly, Apple, Google, et al. did the same. It just seems that AI isn't yet advanced enough to take over so much human work.

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