Prospects dwindle for tech jobs. 
The Tech Layoff Tracker has a nice set of tools and charts that track layoffs.
The latest layoffs across all tech companies.
So far in 2025, there have been 533 layoffs at tech companies with 144,926 people impacted (549 people per day).
In 2024, there were 1,115 layoffs at tech companies w/ 238,461 people impacted (653 people per day).
Pain in Seattle
The Wall Street Journal reports Seattle, Tech Boomtown, Grapples With a Future of Fewer Tech Jobs
Hannah Andrews, a manager at Five Stones Coffee Co. in Redmond, Wash., is used to seeing tech workers in her store just off Microsoft’s main campus. But a few months ago, she started to notice a new phenomenon: People who listed Microsoft and other tech companies on their résumés were applying to become baristas.
The applicants typically had master’s degrees and experience in graphic design or marketing roles, Andrews said—sometimes senior ones. They were applying to jobs at Five Stones that would pay Redmond’s minimum wage, $16.66 an hour. Five Stones hasn’t yet hired such candidates because the coffee shop gives priority to more traditional entry-level baristas, like high-schoolers.
“They were overqualified,” Andrews said.
Led by Amazon and Microsoft, companies across Seattle have undergone round after round of layoffs in recent years, shedding tens of thousands of employees. Amazon recorded its first-ever year-over-year drop in Washington state employment in 2024. Microsoft has added only 3,000 employees in the U.S. since 2022, even though its market capitalization has roughly doubled over that period.
Between them, the two companies have laid off more than 46,000 employees since 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks workforce reductions. That represents 85% of layoffs by Seattle-area tech companies.
As Amazon and Microsoft have made cuts—and other local tech firms including Expedia and Redfin have followed suit—the effects have rippled through Seattle’s other business sectors. Weakness in payroll and sales tax contributed to a projected $146 million shortfall in revenue over the next two years.
Restaurant and retail spending is down in the business and shopping districts surrounding Amazon’s and Microsoft’s campuses, with total transactions falling by as much as 7% in some popular areas in the past year, according to data from Square.
In the first half of 2025, around 450 restaurants closed in Seattle, or about 16% of its total. “At the halfway point of the year, we’ve already seen as many closures as we’d usually see in a full year,” said Anthony Anton, chief executive officer of the Washington Hospitality Association.
The outlook for many tech workers is dour as companies invest in software tools they can use to streamline teams. Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella has said the company is increasingly looking to AI to perform coding and other tasks once done by people. In June, Amazon said its workforce would shrink going forward.
Nonfarm Jobs by Sector
Information was never a big source of jobs. Let’s hone in further.
Nonfarm Jobs Information Detail
Information jobs peaked in March of 2001 at 3.72 million.
In November of 2011 the number of jobs slumped to 2.63 million before rebounding to 2.91 million ahead of the Covid pademic.
The Covid pandemic rebound high was 3.11 million in November of 2022.
As of August 2025, the number of information jobs fell to 2.93 million, down 5.8 percent from November 2022.
An AI-related jobs slowdown will make it difficult for those who lose an information job to find another.
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There’s enough work to sustain people in America if we stop net borrowing several billion dollars on average every single day, which we then have to pay 630 million per day in interest to outside the USA, to buy stuff from other countries, which sustains a lot of jobs in other countries, but not so much in USA, so AI doesnt seem to be the problem and contrary to Musks fake posturing as saver, he uses the AI hype to try and to push for yet even more money printing, saying we neen UBI and we won’t have to work. Its just BS lies he’s trying to use to get bailed out from his bad bets on Twitter and Cybertruck, and more money printing will only make things worse for people here.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD
I used to live in Seattle. Microsoft is in Redmond, which is not Seattle. It’s 15 miles away, which understates the traffic jam hassle. But Redmond is still in King County, so it’s going to be a hit to the county tax base, or should I say the overtaxed base. Thoughts and prayers! Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
I agree with everything you said but the 2nd & 3rd sentence.
“Many are not traveling here because of our immigration situation and reports of abuse”.
So, are you saying they are taking a moral stand? Or is it possible we are losing tourism to our major cities, NYC comes to mind because of our cities are all turning into a crime filled shit hole and they don’t feel like getting bludgeoned or thrown into front of a moving subway?
No. The large number of foreign travellers avoiding the US is a result of Trump pissing them off with his tariffs and insults. Canadian and European visits have dropped 25% and Asian visits by 17%.
In December 2024, forecasters expected a big jump in tourism in 2025. And with the big decline in our dollar this year, one might think that would help as well. But numbers are down a lot.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/a-downturn-in-international-travel-to-the-u-s-may-last-beyond-summer-experts-warn
Inbound visits to the U.S. are off by 1.6% in 2025. Yep, what a disaster. LOL
https://www.tourismeconomics.com/press/latest-research/us-international-inbound-travel-remains-weak-in-2025/
So not as many Canucks. Who cares? Let ’em stay up there for all I care.
No, its for the reasons elaborated below by Papa D, I don’t feel like spending my hard earned folding stuff in the US after having 10% tariffs slapped on us when you run a trade surplus with us. Its my protest.
I keep telling everyone that AI is drinking your milkshakes. When will people start paying attention?
Oracle is in the same boat as MS when it comes to dealing with Linux though. Redhat is mostly open source, vastly cheaper, and simply better at doing most of that stuff. Oracle’s attempts to make a parallel Linux went so badly they’re reduced to publishing Redhat patch notes as a petty gesture. Some sleeping giant.
As for credit card purchases. That info is pretty tightly regulated for reasons you can probably guess. Even flaunting having access to that kind of info is discouraged because it makes your organization a bigger target for hacking (which has been the fate of Oracle more than a few times now).
P.s about Windows 11: it’s because they’ve been closed source kernel for so long that other people are doing way better in the open source space and they can’t copy it without legal issue. They’re doing all they can to polish the Windows NT kernel into something better and it’s not working. Last time this happened they just bought out a smarter company (specifically they literally stole it from IBM), this time they’re stuck because no one wants to play ball.
hj
My home state is run by morons. My two doodles are smarter than the whole lot running the state of Washington. Well, come to think of it, they are smarter than a lot of people I know.
US Population is up about 30% since early 80s. If you deflate the present number of 2,926 by 30%, it places IT employment at 2,048, same as early 80s.
Employment is so old monetary paradigm. Monetary Gifting is the new one. Beware those who cannot or will not think a new thought.
wait until they become the competition
AI is also being affected by layoffs. Cortana is still without a job after being replaced with Copilot.
Tariffs bs. High tech layoffs reduce inflation. They are all over the place: China, India, Israel and the US. These co restructure, shed unproductive mid mgr and their teams, but they are doing well. When these workers become baristas they can’t buy RE.
Denninger on the radio. Worthwhile and in line with this. https://retirementlifestyleadvocates.com/podcast/episode/1/2025-09-21-retirement-lifestyle-advocates-radio-w-karl-denninger
In July, California’s state unemployment rate was highest, at 5.5%.
“An estimated 36,000 Californians who work in the information industry lost their jobs in 2024 alone, partly due to the rise of AI.” “The BLS reported that the state lost around 40,000 jobs in motion picture and video production in 2024, and entertainment unions report that 40% to 50% of their members are jobless.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/all-glitters-how-taxes-and-regulation-are-tarnishing-golden-state
Tech employment will be growing in Canada thanks to Trump’s H1-B cash grab:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/one-big-winner-of-trump-s-h1-b-crackdown-could-be-canada/ar-AA1Nabno?cvid=68d3bd6dc85c4e8aba7fdc2e6fa212b2&ocid=oie8dlpg
eh?
He likely works for Russell Vought.
(As do they all).
Cities Not To Buy Real Estate:
Seattle – Reason: Tech Layoffs
Bay Area – Reason: Tech Layoffs
DC – Reason: Government Cuts
Cities In Pandemic Locations – Reason: Fully Remote Work Is Ending
Here in Tallahassee, it’s nice. I have fewer bugs than in my central valley home in California. I had ongoing rat issues in the 25 years I lived in CA, and none here. Plus, real estate here is cheap, and we have a mild four seasons.
Ft. Lauderdale is super nice.
“Insane Insurance” = sound underwriting
Let FL, CA, TX set up their own state funds as insurer of last resort. After all, I’ve been hearing my whole lifetime how if they were their own countries then they be amongst the largest in terms of GDP. Good for them!
My wife was in IT. she remembers when it was difficult to find good programmers. Many entry level jobs were filled, at good salary, by grads of 6-month computer schools. Now, they can’t get hired as baristas. In economics they called this the cobweb cycle.
Back in the day, IT looked very boring, and did not attract a lot of students.
Writing programs was ok, but then you had to punch cards, and wait forever for your result.
Would you rather be a barista?
No, I ‘d rather be an accountant.
We haven’t used punched cards since the 1970’s.
That’s correct
At least the air conditioning was good while one waited.
Lol – yes it was!
=seatlle/microsoft will be fine
it is 4th or 5th bust from dotcom blow off 2000*2002 years
====
Microsoft still rules personal computers. windows and sh11it!
#2 in cloud development after amazon!
net.core every popular for microservices, portable, used everywhere.
not sure about AI !
btw, Microsoft reaps billions from android. apparently they own some critical patents in field!!
so it will pass!!
ps
i wish Seattle was not run by crazy liberals.. it was so nice in 2000xxx
alx bs ==> no bs !
if it is some kind of programming code, i am not familiar w/.
Was there just before 2000 at MS. It was nice, but apparently didn’t last.
That was the time and place where I first observed 20 and 30 something whites “camping out” in public parks.
Why is Private Education lumped in with Health? Honestly, it would be more accurate to call this bucket, Indoctrination and Anti-Health.
Hooray for willful ignorance!
They’ve enjoyed 30 years of boom times, their real estate is in the stratosphere; common folks buying homes now worth million+, stock portfolios enjoyed 10x since 2009. Lots of friends there. My company used to be HQ there. Coworkers telling me Seattle would never see a backslide. Gentrification at its peak. They could have their portfolios and RE cut in half and still be massively ahead of the country financially outside of Bay Area. Hope they didn’t waste it.
Maybe they can go downtown and see what has become of their once-fine city. Tents and open drug use.
I love the PacNW but they’ve been living in fantasy land and their politics is atrocious. Complaining about a bust falls on deaf ears to those that have witnessed their outsized boom.
We could use a lot more construction workers building affordable houses.
Why not 3-D print them instead?
Don’t worry. Bring in Rick Perry to set up data centers there. I wouldn’t trust that moron to set up a grade school volcano eruption science project with baking soda and vinegar. But to give the devil his due, he was an early proponent of vaxxing.
Rick Perry’s data center REIT Fermi targets $13 billion valuation in US IPO
Just follow the money –
Perry’s Vaccine Mandate Incited Anger In Texas : NPR
Communist leadership doesn’t help. Bruce Harrel, puhlease. Summer of Love power lesbian. It’s a leftist cartoon show.
Not “communist”. Communists eliminate oligarchy or they’re not communist.
TPTB promote dysfunction in the “left” and “right”, trying to keep them close enough in balance so that they can step in to “nudge” things in their direction.
“Chaos is a ladder.”
– Littlefinger
And yet , companies insist HB-1 Immigration Job Visas are essential.
They are “essential” if your real aim is to underpay your employees.
=They are “essential” if your real aim is to underpay your employees.
total bs!!
my first year salary was $60.000 . it was in 2000 . it was h1-b visa.
I was fresh from former USSR. knew nothing about life in usa.
=====
later i was told, i make more than 80% of all Americans at that time.
most of Americans are morons ( as in in every country )!
nobody likes reading , learning new, or math/applied math/physics for that matter.
you reap what you saw!!
alx
Every country has morons, but some have special kind of moron.
IQ distribution is responsible, but culture and brainwashing, too.
There are millions of paper pushers that better pray AI is a bubble.
Dude, Copilot stole my job and my ice chai lattes!
Bruh, you can always get a job throwing bricks with Antifa!
That’s well done. lol.
A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/22/tech-layoffs-2025-list/
Now people will get to experience, live and in color and in their lunchboxes, implications of the rollback of the welfare state. The whole time, they were issuing tough “conservative” talk while blithely, ignorantly, relying deeply on its redistribution across the regions of the country, and sectors of the economy. Once one has fallen far enough, it is really hard to get back anywhere near even, ever. Politically, it can create an overreaction to the left. That was a central lesson of the 20th century (as those pendulums swung out of control, to world war levels) these crusading idiots are completely clueless of.
There is nothing conservative about Seattle. They are the hardest of the hard left and the most woke. Instead of noticing the election results they have doubled down on it.
More taxes, more regulations, the All-Glorious State will solve all!
hmmm, tech
the most exportable job in the world
will charging $100K for a H1b increase the number of tech workers in the US
or will it increase the number of tech workers elsewhere in the world
but the genius in the WH has the answers (next step? make the US internet sealed like China?)
“will charging $100K for a H1b increase the number of tech workers in the US”
Wrong question, it should be “will charging $100K for a H1b increase the number of tech workers in the US who are Americans”
If there are many native tech workers available the demand for H1b workers should go down anyway, the extra $100k will push that trend more. Management may actually find it’s no longer cost effective to hire H1b workers just because they can abuse them more.
Or, consider this: they just offshore the entire job to Thailand.
This has been the trend for centuries. Automation, AI, human ingenuity; evolving and making us more productive and efficient. Always creating more jobs than it eliminates; though they are always different jobs. Will it finally “be different this time”? Will AI eliminate more jobs than are created? And IF so, will this be a good thing (like much shorter work weeks for all) or a bad thing (the haves with great jobs vs the have nots with none)?
A similar example: In the US oil and gas industry, the workforce has declined from 600k to <400k in the last decade, while production has increased.
For US skilled workers who find themselves without a job, you might consider a job in China. They are expanding their K Visa program to try to attract skilled workers who previously would have tried to get into the US with a H1b Visa. With Trump’s recent H1b changes, they “might” look to China instead.
“Always creating more” — shades of the Subprime era (and underlying equilibrium models) faiths. Better maybe, but for who? What if all of a sudden it is better for autonomous systems and their controllers, but not redundant humans? Inconceivable?
Better for almost everyone in the world.
For hundreds of years, automation has ended up creating far more jobs than it has eliminated.
For example: in 1800, 75% of all jobs were in agriculture, or 225 million jobs out of the 300 million jobs worldwide.
Today, thanks to automation, which increased productivity, living standards, and subsequently, resulted in population growth, there are now 5 billion jobs worldwide.
People have been scaremongering about “there will be NO jobs left in the future” for over 200 years. Yet we have more and more jobs every year.
Maybe it will be different this time? Only time will tell.
Attached is a recently posted youtube interview of Geoffrey Hinton from Canada. He won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to ‘neural networks’ which allowed computers to think and assimilate information….hence ‘AI’. He thinks that AI will be superlative in areas such as medicine in allowing quick and accurate diagnostics. But he is extremely pessimistic of AI’s impact on the job market. He says that AI is already taking jobs and will continue to do so at an ever increasing pace. He states that white-collar jobs will be the first to go. He is dead serious when he recommends that a person learn a trade such as plumber, electrician, etc. This guy is incredibly smart, and humble. He gets quite introspective on his career at the end of the interview. The interview is long, but well worth your time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giT0ytynSqg
Thanks. Though I have seen this interview before as well as other interviews that Hinton has done. It is important to note that he suggests what “is possible” and what “could” happen with AI. And that it is important to be forewarned about the negative possibilities that “could” happen, even though he does not say that these things “will” happen.
Hinton is a scared, old fool. Pay no attention to him.
In the long run it will be a net positive (prediction). Better efficiency and productive, like you said, is always a good thing.
Good if you are a capitalist that owns AI but bad for the 99.9% that don’t.
If an economy is structured that it doesn’t meet the needs and so-called discretionary requirements such as affordable healthcare, paid vacations, access to a good affordable education, quality food, etc., for the majority of its population, it is prima facia a failed economic model.
Hopefully, the 0.1% will help share the benefits from it to the other 99.9% of the peeps:
**AI for Social Impact**
AI can have a significant positive impact on various aspects of society, benefiting people in medical, agricultural, and educational settings. Here are some examples:
**Medical:**
* **Disease diagnosis and treatment**: AI can help doctors analyze medical images, identify patterns, and make accurate diagnoses.
* **Personalized medicine**: AI can analyze genetic data and medical history to provide tailored treatment plans.
* **Predictive analytics**: AI can predict patient outcomes, allowing for early interventions and improved care.
* **Virtual assistants**: AI-powered chatbots can help patients with basic medical inquiries, reducing the burden on healthcare professionals.
**Agriculture:**
* **Precision farming**: AI can analyze satellite images, soil data, and weather forecasts to optimize crop yields and reduce waste.
* **Crop monitoring**: AI-powered sensors can monitor crop health, detecting early signs of disease or pests.
* **Automated farming**: AI can automate tasks such as planting, pruning, and harvesting, increasing efficiency and reducing labor costs.
* **Sustainable practices**: AI can help farmers adopt more sustainable practices, reducing environmental impact and promoting eco-friendly agriculture.
**Education:**
* **Personalized learning**: AI can analyze student data, adapting learning materials and pace to meet individual needs.
* **Intelligent tutoring systems**: AI-powered chatbots can provide one-on-one support, helping students with difficult concepts.
* **Automated grading**: AI can evaluate student assignments, freeing up instructors to focus on teaching and feedback.
* **Language learning**: AI can help non-native speakers improve language skills, providing interactive lessons and feedback.
These are just a few examples of the many ways AI can benefit people in medical, agricultural, and educational settings.
Hope is not a plan. The top .1% will almost exclusively benefit financially. The remainder will not unless it is heavily regulated to ensure the hoi polloi share in the increase of productivity and improved societal metrics that you discuss.
Call me skeptical but there is no evidence historically in the West that oligarchs bribing kleptocrats expands the middle class,
The Rockerfellers in education , Bill Gates in agriculture and how future doctors are trained in medical school, how medical journals are heavily subsidized by Big Pharma, etc., argue otherwise.
We will have to see, maybe heavy legislative regulation is needed to slow it down. But, I don’t agree that society won’t benefit from it and a lot of different fields should benefit.
That very first graphic is very telling of how “great” AI is. Notice how Microsoft, the leader of the charge, is the one laying most people off. Is it because AI is working for them? I’ll let you look at how crappy Windows 11 is and answer that for yourself.
They overhired during the pandemic AI hype and now they’re trying their best to trim the fat while continuing to pray that the bubble doesn’t burst on them. Not shocking seeing windows NT operating systems are pushing 30 without a replacement – and they’re showing their age. I expect to see similar with nividia in a matter of years. Also notice how last time information jobs peaked was during the dot com bubble burst? I smell a repeat.
Well stated!
Yeah, but if you take the cost of every tech worker and replace them with AI, valuations are cheap! Issac Newton lost an arm and a leg in the South Sea Bubble, somewhere along the asymptotes.
Seeing as the totally free to use Linux is rapidly approaching a place of real competition in servers (which is where Microsoft makes a lot of their money), I wouldn’t be messing around with my product if I was M$. Especially if I was going to need a windfall after ai busts out.
I’m looking forward to the day when an AI can be instructed to write a complete OS similar to Windows. Hell, I wrote a simple OS as my senior project in college. I’m certain a modern AI could do a far better job.
I can’t imagine the code mess that Windows must look like after 30 years of patch on top of patch on top of patch with a mix of 16, 32 and 64 bit code.
A new OS designed from the ground-up would be probably half the code size, much more efficient and far easier to maintain.
As to Win11, currently, close to 50% of Windows users are still on Win10 and are unlikely to switch over when support officially ends in Oct. I am one of these.