Intel tops the list of companies conducting mass layoffs in 2025 after firing nearly 22,000 employees.
Restructuring efforts, AI-driven automation, and bloated hierarchies were the reasons behind the layoffs
Photo Credit: Pixabay/Mohamed Hassan
Layoffs in tech never really stopped in the post-pandemic world. Since the end of 2021, tech companies have been laying off employees in large numbers. Whether this was due to over-hiring during the pandemic, slowing revenue as the world returned to normal after COVID-19 or companies shutting down unprofitable ventures, we have seen thousands of tech employees getting the pink slip every single year. Unfortunately, 2025 was also not different, as tech giants such as Intel, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce made headlines for their mass layoffs.
Intel has been the worst offender in terms of layoffs this calendar year. According to a Bloomberg report, the company announced plans to let go of 20 percent of its workforce. With 1,08,900 employees at the end of 2024, the number comes close to 22,000 employees. The company CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, had highlighted the need to remove hierarchical complexity and become more efficient as one of the primary reasons behind the layoffs.
The first round of firings occurred on Sunday when the chipmaker officially cut as many as 2,392 jobs in Oregon and approximately 4,000 total positions across the US, a Tom's Hardware report claimed. Intel has also been silently letting employees go in Israel, with the most affected roles said to be mid-level managers, first-line supervisors, and technicians from the Remote Operations Centre (ROC). More layoffs are expected in the coming months.
Microsoft has also been firing employees rapidly in 2025. After letting go of 6,000 employees across all levels in April, the tech giant fired another 9,000 employees in July, where the majority were from its Xbox gaming division. Apart from this, the company has reportedly been silently cutting hundreds of jobs globally, which are not prominently reported. The reason behind these firings is said to be the company's adoption of AI technologies.
In one of the more bizarre layoffs this year, Meta fired 3,600 employees or five percent of its workforce in February, according to a Yahoo Finance report. While the company had said that only the low performers were affected by the layoff, some employees reportedly claimed to have received high praise in their feedback.
In February, HP announced a layoff that would affect 2,000 of its employees, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. The company reportedly fired employees as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts. The move is also said to save the company as much as $300 million (roughly Rs. 2,575 crores) in expenses.
Indeed and Glassdoor, owned by Japanese group Recruit Holdings, announced the cutting of 1,300 jobs from both companies, according to a Bloomberg report. The reason cited by the company was that it was “shifting focus towards AI.” The report, while highlighting another incident of AI taking jobs, is also ironic, given that both of them are job recruitment platforms.
But these are just a few of the many layoffs taking place in the tech industry right now. Based on research conducted by Gadgets 360 and data taken from Layoffs.fyi, the planned layoffs this year could affect more than 74,000 employees globally working in 154 different companies. Here is a breakdown of major tech layoffs in 2025:
| S. No. | Company Name | Employees Fired | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Intel | 22,000 | April 23 |
| 2 | Microsoft | 15,000 | May 13, July 2 |
| 3 | Meta | 3,600 | February 10 |
| 4 | Northvolt | 2,800 | March 31 |
| 5 | Hewlett Packard Enterprise | 2,500 | March 6 |
| 6 | HP | 2,000 | February 28 |
| 7 | Workday | 1,750 | February 5 |
| 8 | OpenText | 1,600 | May 6 |
| 9 | Autodesk | 1,350 | February 27 |
| 10 | Indeed + Glassdoor | 1,300 | July 10 |
| 11 | Salesforce | 1,000 | February 3 |
| 12 | Cruise | 1,000 | February 4 |
| 13 | Blue Origin | 1,000 | February 13 |
| 14 | Ola Electric | 1,000 | March 3 |
| 15 | Block | 931 | March 25 |
| 16 | Wayfair | 730 | January 10 |
| 17 | NetApp | 700 | April 30 |
| 18 | Sprinklr | 500 | February 6 |
| 19 | Grubhub | 500 | February 28 |
| 20 | CrowdStrike | 400 | May 7 |
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