By The Economist
Publication Date: 2026-04-14 08:00:00
The Economist
The American tech industry is in layoff mode. Oracle, a would-be cloud computing hyperscaler, recently announced thousands of job cuts. Block, a darling of digital payments, is cutting more than 4,000 jobs – almost half of its workforce. Amazon and Meta have announced layoffs.
From 2022 to 2025, these two and the other five giants of the “Magnificent Seven” barely increased their payrolls. Total employment in San Francisco, the tech capital of the world, has fallen 3 percent since the start of 2023, whether in tech or elsewhere.
This is not – as the bosses claim – because the tech industry is in crisis. On the contrary, it is because the industry is in the middle…
