Yahoo Finance The Company with the Most Layoffs in 2024
In this article, we look at the company with the most layoffs in 2024. We recently released a list of companies laying off this year; to view the full free list, you can head over to the 15 Big Companies Laying Off in 2024.
More than 90,000 employees have been laid off across the world in 2024, according to independent job cuts tracker, Layoffs.fyi. The number suggests that the layoffs are still going strong this year following significant workforce reductions in 2023 in which nearly 240,000 people lost their jobs.
Companies were forced to layoff a large share of their employees when the coronavirus pandemic struck in 2020. However, despite the world returning to normalcy, job cuts continue to remain high, primarily due to financial reasons, pressure from investors, and the need to eliminate certain departments and roles. The first week of June has just concluded, and already over 1,400 employees have been shown the door this month, after Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), OrCam, and Oda announced fresh rounds of layoffs.
On June 3, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced the decision, which is likely to impact around 1,000 employees, mainly affecting the company’s Mixed Reality Department which works on HoloLens 2. The Azure for Operators and Mission Engineering departments, which were formed in 2021, are also likely to be affected. Analysts are seeing the move as part of the organizational restructuring taking place in the company. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) laid off over 10,000 employees last year as well.
Job cuts have picked up pace since the beginning of January last year, when it was reported that the company was under pressure from investors after recording its slowest revenue growth (2%) in six years during the last quarter of 2022. Between then and now, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s stock price has increased 79% from $236.6 per share on January 3, 2023 to its current level of $423.85. The company’s diluted earnings per share (EPS), however, only marginally increased from $9.65 in 2022 to $9.65 in 2023.
On the other hand, Google, owned by Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), announced cuts in several teams that are part of its cloud unit, including engineering and sales. According to CNBC, had informed employees of the impending cuts in the cloud unit a week in advance. Around 100 employees were laid off by Google. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). The report also highlighted that the move was part of efforts aimed at prioritizing artificial intelligence.
Investors are pleased with the direction the company is headed, with its stocks gaining over 36% in the last 12 months. Lakehouse Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its April 2024 investor letter:
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) delivered a strong quarterly result that came in well ahead of analysts’ expectations. Revenue grew 15.4% (16.0% constant currency) to $80.5 billion and operating income grew 46.0% to $25.5 billion. Revenue growth accelerated across Search, YouTube Ads, and Google Cloud, all whilst the company delivered its highest operating margin since 2021 – showing meaningful progress in the company’s efforts to durably re-work their cost structure. On the Generative AI front, management emphasized the company’s infrastructure advantages including 5th generation TPUs (chips developed by Google specifically for AI training and inference), high performance data center architecture, and AI models that are 100x more efficient versus 18 months ago. Overall, we believe that Alphabet is well placed for the AI opportunity ahead and still has significant latent earnings power. When combined with a relatively undemanding valuation of 21x forward net profit and over $100 billion of cash on the balance sheet, it’s not hard to see why we remain positive on the range of outcomes in the years ahead.
Moreover, Israeli companies OrCam and Pagaya, along with Norwegian supermarket delivery startup, combined laid off around 350 of their employees from various departments of the business, citing financial and strategic reasons. The three companies, however, did not make the list of the top 15 companies with the most layoffs in 2024.
Let’s now head over to the companies that did.
Methodology
We formulated the list of big companies laying off in 2024 using data published on Layoffs.fyi. The website has a comprehensive list of companies from various industries that have announced job cuts over the last few years. We filtered the date for layoffs announced in 2024, and have listed companies in ascending order of the number of employees laid off by them this year.
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The company with the most layoffs in 2024 is Tesla!
1. Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Laid off: 14,000
In April this year, Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) declared to its employees that two senior executives at the company had resigned and that the electric car company would also be laying off more 14,000 employees, which represented well over 10% of Tesla’s overall workforce. According to a report in The New York Times, Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s decision to cut jobs was forced by a decrease in sales and growing competition in the industry. Thus far in 2024, Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) has had the highest number of layoffs for big companies.
The company’s woes still continue unabated, with its stocks having lost 8.2% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Aristotle Atlantic Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
We sold Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) due to deteriorating fundamentals, and there have been significant negative earnings revisions over the past year. Tesla has announced several price cuts to its vehicles and has underscored competition in electric vehicles (EVs) globally. China seems especially competitive. More U.S. EV offerings are expected this year. The Full-Self Driving Capability feature is controversial, has regulatory and litigation risk, and has been chronically late. Elon Musk is trying to gain additional voting shares in Tesla stock. This could present governance issues where his voting share could exceed his economic share of the company.
To learn about other companies laying off their employees, view the full report 15 Big Companies Laying Off in 2024.
At Insider Monkey, we delve into a variety of topics, ranging from job cuts to other business aspects in the industry; however, our expertise lies in identifying the top-performing stocks. Currently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology stands out as one of the most promising fields. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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