Opinion: How Big Tech is using mass layoffs to bring workers to heel

Union activity at Amazon and other tech companies has been on the rise. Will the sense of precarity engendered by a massive wave of layoffs quash that – or stoke it? — Los Angeles Times/TNS

In Silicon Valley, the new year began as the last one ended – with tens of thousands of tech workers losing their jobs.

Just a few days into 2023, Amazon chief executive Andrew Jassy announced that there would be 18,000 layoffs across the company. Within weeks, Microsoft revealed it was slashing its head count by 10,000 and Google said that it was terminating 12,000 employees. IBM looks to be next, with nearly 4,000 workers on the chopping block.