While companies’ reasons for slimming their staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid a backdrop of technological change. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, some 41% of companies worldwide said they were expecting to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence, the report suggests.
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Which companies have announced job cuts related in 2025?
Companies such as Dropbox, Google, and IBM have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are meanwhile expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF. Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far:
-Microsoft: In 2025, Satya Nadella-led company Microsoft is likely to fire its ‘underperforming employees’ across various departments, including its security divisions. The move is part of the company’s updated performance management strategy, aligning with similar actions by other tech giants. The layoffs follow months of evaluations by managers, scrutinising employees at all levels, including senior positions. The cuts are expected to be widespread, impacting several departments, with the security division reportedly among those affected.
“At Microsoft we focus on high performance talent,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying. “We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action,” the spokesperson told Business Insider. Despite the layoffs, vacated roles are often refilled, suggesting Microsoft’s overall workforce, which stood at 228,000 full-time employees in June 2024, may not see a significant reduction.-BlackRock: BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, according to Bloomberg.The reductions are more than offset by some 3,750 workers who were added last year and another 2,000 expected to be added in 2025.BlackRock’s president, Rob Kapito, and its chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, said the cuts would help realign the firm’s resources with its strategy, Bloomberg reported.
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-Bridgewater has cut about 90 staff: Bridgewater Associates cut 7 percent of its staff on Monday in an effort to stay lean, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
The layoffs at the world’s largest hedge fund bring its head count back to where it was in 2023, the person said. The company’s founder, Ray Dalio, said in a 2019 interview that about 30% of new employees were leaving the firm within 18 months.
-Washington Post: The Washington Post said on Tuesday it would lay off about 4% of its workforce or less than 100 employees in a bid to cut costs, as the storied newspaper grapples with growing losses, reported Reuters. The newspaper is making changes across several business functions, a spokesperson said, while suggesting the job cuts will not impact its newsroom. The Post has seen a decline its digital readership and reported a $77 million loss in 2023.
The newspaper, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is among many news outlets struggling to maintain a sustainable business model in the decades since the internet upended the economics of journalism and caused a sharp decline in digital advertising rates. The Associated Press also said in November it would lay off about 8% of its workforce.
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-Ally: The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI. The impacted employees were notified on Tuesday.
“As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson also said the company was offering severance, out-placement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally. Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.
-Amazon: Last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the tech giant will will cut approximately 14,000 manager positions to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. According to Morgan Stanley analysis, this move is expected to help Amazon save up to $3 billion annually. It is part of Jassy’s strategy to enhance operational efficiency by adjusting the management structure.
As a result, there may be unease among employees; however, the company has clarified that the CEO’s plan will affect far fewer managers than initially anticipated. Additionally, a report by The Information states that the layoffs will apply only to corporate employees. Out of more than 1.5 million global employees, nearly 350,000 hold corporate roles, including those in engineering, marketing, and product management.
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Amazon, Boeing and Spirit Airlines announce job layoffs
Major firms like Amazon, Boeing, and budget airline Spirit Airlines have revealed layoffs that would affect staff in 2025. While the actual number of job layoffs in the United States in 2024 is unknown, it is expected that it will be lower than in 2023, when layoffs increased by 98% in 2022, owing to improved economic conditions, according to a HT report.
