It’s been another challenging week for the U.S. tech workforce, with the latest data from the Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker revealing a continued churn of job cuts across various sectors, particularly impacting the online sports betting industry and emerging gaming studios. This ongoing trend underscores a persistent period of economic recalibration and strategic shifts within the broader technology landscape. The tracker, a comprehensive resource for understanding the ebb and flow of employment in the tech sector, continues to log significant workforce reductions, painting a clear picture of an industry striving for efficiency amidst evolving market dynamics.

Sports Betting Giants See Cuts as AI Reshapes Workforce

The online sports betting sector, a booming industry in recent years, found itself in the spotlight this week with two of its biggest players, DraftKings and FanDuel, announcing notable job cuts. These actions highlight a potential pivot within the industry, driven by a renewed focus on profitability and the integration of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence.

Sports betting behemoth DraftKings confirmed it is undergoing a significant reorganization of its teams, a move explicitly aimed at fostering future growth and leveraging the power of artificial intelligence. While the exact number of employees impacted by this restructuring remains undisclosed by the company, a report from Next.io suggested that the cutbacks were substantial, and further reductions could be on the horizon as DraftKings reorients its operational structure to capitalize on AI-driven efficiencies. This strategic shift reflects a broader industry trend where companies are optimizing their human capital in favor of automated or AI-enhanced processes, signaling a fundamental change in how these platforms operate and scale. The company’s emphasis on AI for growth suggests a long-term vision that prioritizes technological advancement and streamlined operations, potentially at the cost of certain human roles.

Meanwhile, one of DraftKings’ primary competitors, New York-based FanDuel Sports, also made headlines by announcing the complete shutdown of its Atlanta office. This decision is set to affect 57 workers, with layoffs expected to commence in mid-April. According to a report by Atlanta News First, the closure marks a consolidation effort for FanDuel, which, like DraftKings, is navigating a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market. Such office closures often indicate a strategic move to centralize operations, reduce overheads, or shift resources to other high-priority regions or functions. For the affected employees, this represents a significant disruption, further contributing to the week’s overall layoff count.

Midsummer Studios Shuts Down, "Burbank" Game Canceled

Beyond the betting world, the gaming sector also faced its share of turbulence. Hunt Valley, Maryland-based Midsummer Studios announced its abrupt closure, bringing an end to a promising venture. The startup, founded by acclaimed Firaxis Games alumnus Jake Solomon – known for his work on beloved titles like XCOM – had launched with considerable fanfare in 2024, securing $6 million in seed funding. Despite this early backing and the pedigree of its founder, the studio ceased operations without publicly stating a reason for the shutdown, nor was the number of affected workers disclosed.

Midsummer Studios had been actively developing a unique game titled "Burbank," which Solomon himself described as a blend of "Life Sims + The Truman Show." This intriguing concept had garnered significant interest within the gaming community. The sudden closure of a studio with such talent and initial funding underscores the volatile nature of game development, where even well-funded projects can face unforeseen challenges leading to their demise. The shuttering of Midsummer Studios adds to a growing list of gaming companies struggling to find sustainable footing in a crowded and increasingly competitive market, leaving employees and fans disappointed.

AOL Makes Its Layoffs Tracker Debut Amidst Acquisition Spree

Making its inaugural appearance on the Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker is New York-based AOL, a legacy internet company whose name evokes an earlier era of online connectivity. Reports indicate that AOL will lay off 108 workers at its Reston, Virginia, location. These cuts are a direct consequence of AOL’s recent acquisition by Milan-based Bending Spoons, a company known for its aggressive acquisition strategy in the mobile app space.

Bending Spoons embarked on its buying spree in 2021, systematically acquiring various tech assets. AOL is just the latest addition to its portfolio, and such acquisitions often lead to workforce rationalization as the acquiring company seeks to integrate operations, eliminate redundancies, and streamline the new entity to fit its overarching business model. For the employees at AOL’s Reston office, this marks a significant shift, highlighting how mergers and acquisitions, while potentially offering a lifeline for struggling entities, frequently result in job losses for the acquired company’s workforce. This pattern is a familiar one within the tech industry, where consolidation often comes at the expense of existing roles.

New Additions to the Tracker

The Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker is a dynamic and continuously updated resource, reflecting the relentless pace of change within the tech industry. This past week’s additions, including the detailed reports from DraftKings, FanDuel, Midsummer Studios, and AOL, underscore the tracker’s commitment to providing real-time insights into workforce adjustments. While specific sub-listings for this section are compiled on an ongoing basis, the inclusion of these prominent names reinforces the breadth and depth of companies affected by current economic and strategic pressures. The tracker is constantly identifying and adding new companies and updated layoff figures, ensuring a comprehensive view of the evolving tech employment landscape.

Tech Layoffs: US Companies That Cut Jobs In 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 And 2026

The past few years have been marked by a significant recalibration in the tech sector, moving away from the rapid expansion seen during the early pandemic years. The cumulative impact of these layoffs paints a stark picture of an industry grappling with overhiring, economic headwinds, and a shifting investment landscape.

By the numbers:

• Layoffs during the week ended Feb. 18, 2026: At least 2,353 U.S. tech sector employees were laid off or scheduled for layoffs, according to a Crunchbase News tally. This weekly snapshot illustrates the persistent nature of job cuts, even as the overall volume might fluctuate.
• In 2025: Around 127,000 workers were let go from U.S.-based tech companies, according to our tally. This figure demonstrates a continued, albeit somewhat reduced, wave of layoffs compared to the peak of 2023, indicating that companies are still optimizing their workforces.
• In 2024: At least 95,667 workers at U.S.-based tech companies lost their jobs in 2024, according to a Crunchbase News tally. This year saw companies continuing to shed roles, with large enterprises and startups alike focusing on efficiency and cost control.
• In 2023: More than 191,000 workers in U.S.-based tech companies (or tech companies with a large U.S. workforce) were laid off in mass job cuts. This marked the peak year for tech layoffs, largely driven by major tech giants correcting for pandemic-era overhiring and a challenging economic climate.
• In 2022: More than 93,000 jobs were slashed from public and private tech companies in the U.S. This year represented the initial wave of significant tech layoffs, signaling the end of a long period of uninterrupted growth and the beginning of a market correction.

The cumulative effect of these annual figures highlights a period of unprecedented workforce adjustments within the U.S. tech sector, with hundreds of thousands of individuals impacted over the past four years.

Companies with the biggest workforce reductions in 2025

While the specific detailed list for 2025 is continually being compiled and updated, similar to previous years, the largest workforce reductions typically come from a mix of established tech giants and rapidly scaling startups facing significant market shifts. These often include companies in e-commerce, software services, and hardware manufacturing that are undergoing strategic pivots, post-acquisition integrations, or reacting to changes in consumer demand and economic conditions.

Methodology

The Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker is meticulously maintained to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information on job cuts within the tech industry. This tracker specifically includes layoffs conducted by U.S.-based companies or those with a strong operational presence in the U.S., ensuring relevance to the American job market. We encompass both burgeoning startups and established, publicly traded tech-heavy corporations. Furthermore, the tracker accounts for companies based internationally that maintain a significant workforce in the United States, such as Klarna, even when the precise impact on their U.S. employees isn’t fully disaggregated from global figures.

Layoff and workforce figures are presented as best estimates, meticulously gathered from a diverse array of sources. Our data compilation includes comprehensive media reports, original investigative reporting by Crunchbase News, direct social media posts from affected employees and companies, and crowdsourced databases such as layoffs.fyi. This multi-faceted approach allows us to cross-reference information and enhance the reliability of our figures. The tracker is updated at least bi-weekly, if not more frequently, to ensure its timeliness and relevance.

We have recently enhanced our layoffs tracker to distinctly reflect the most recent round of layoffs conducted by each company. This methodological refinement enables us to track layoff trends with greater speed and precision, which may account for some adjustments in our reported numbers as we continuously refine our data. If a specific employee headcount cannot be confirmed to meet our stringent standards of accuracy and verification, we explicitly note it as "unclear" to maintain transparency.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a layoff?
A layoff is typically a temporary or permanent termination of an individual’s employment, often enacted by a company for reasons unrelated to individual performance, such as cost-saving measures, restructuring, or economic downturns. While some layoffs can be temporary, especially in industries with seasonal demand, tech company layoffs generally fall into the permanent category. This means employees are not expected to return, and their positions are often eliminated. A "mass layoff" refers to a significant number of employees being cut within a short period, frequently triggered by broad economic shifts or major corporate strategic changes.

Why are tech companies doing layoffs?
Tech layoffs began to surge in 2022 and have persisted through 2023, 2024, and 2025 for a confluence of reasons. Many companies, particularly those in the e-commerce and digital services sectors, experienced unprecedented demand during the COVID-19 pandemic’s stay-at-home mandates. This led to aggressive hiring, often doubling employee headcounts, to meet the perceived long-term shift in consumer behavior. As daily life returned to normal, this demand normalized, leaving many companies overstaffed.

Large tech employers like Salesforce and Google parent Alphabet acknowledged that their post-pandemic layoffs followed several years of hyper-growth and rapid hiring between 2019 and 2022. Additionally, a slowing global economy, persistent inflation, rising interest rates, and fears of a looming recession prompted companies to reduce operational costs. The slowdown in advertising revenue also hit many ad-dependent tech platforms.

Venture-backed startups have also significantly cut jobs to preserve cash reserves and extend their runway, as venture funding experienced a sharp decline after its peak in 2021. With capital becoming more expensive and harder to secure, many startups found themselves in a precarious position, leading to drastic cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, or in some cases, filing for bankruptcy or outright shutting down. The strategic shift towards AI is also playing a role, leading some companies to reallocate resources and restructure teams, sometimes resulting in job cuts in non-AI-focused areas.

What were the biggest tech layoffs of 2024?
In 2024, Intel Corp. led the U.S. tech employers in terms of job cuts, laying off more than 15,000 employees as the semiconductor giant navigated market adjustments and strategic shifts. Electric-car maker Tesla followed closely, cutting over 14,000 roles amidst production optimizations and a challenging EV market. Networking powerhouse Cisco also underwent substantial reductions, with more than 10,000 total roles cut as it streamlined operations and adapted to evolving technological demands.

In 2023, Amazon layoffs were the largest, impacting 16,000 roles across various divisions, including its AWS cloud unit and advertising department. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, cut approximately 12,000 jobs, while Microsoft’s layoffs totaled about 10,000 workers. Facebook parent Meta also shed around 10,000 roles as part of its "year of efficiency." Many venture-backed tech startups also conducted layoffs due to the significant drop in venture capital investment since the 2021 peak, with falling startup valuations factoring heavily into these decisions.

Are more tech layoffs coming?
Yes, more layoffs are likely on the horizon. While there are some indications that the sheer volume of mass layoffs might be tapering off from the peaks of 2023, experts we’ve consulted anticipate that job cuts in the tech sector will continue for the foreseeable future. Large tech companies and startups alike are still contending with economic headwinds, including higher interest rates, inflationary pressures, and a more cautious consumer and enterprise spending environment. Companies are increasingly focused on profitability and efficiency over hyper-growth, meaning workforce optimization remains a priority. Seed and early-stage startups, in particular, may continue to conduct layoffs as a necessary measure to extend their cash runways in a difficult venture funding environment, where securing new capital is challenging. The trend of tech layoffs, which noticeably increased at the start of 2022, ramped up in 2023, waned somewhat in 2024, and has continued into 2025 and 2026, is expected to persist in a more targeted fashion.

What are signs that a company is planning layoffs?
Several indicators may suggest a company is likely to conduct layoffs. These signs often include:

1. Hiring freezes or rescinded job offers: A sudden halt in recruitment or withdrawal of job offers is a strong signal.
2. Restructuring announcements: Companies often frame layoffs as "reorganizations" or "strategic realignments."
3. Poor financial performance: Declining revenues, profits, or missed financial targets can trigger cost-cutting.
4. Leadership changes: A new CEO or executive team might initiate significant workforce changes.
5. Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A): Acquired companies often face redundancies post-integration.
6. Budget cuts: Reductions in departmental budgets, travel, or employee perks.
7. Overlapping roles: Identified inefficiencies or duplicated positions across teams.
8. Shifting strategic priorities: A pivot to new markets or technologies might deem certain roles obsolete.
9. Reduced venture funding or difficulty raising capital: Especially for startups, a tight funding environment forces cash preservation.
10. Public statements about "efficiency" or "optimization": These corporate buzzwords often precede workforce reductions.

When will layoffs stop?
Predicting the exact cessation of layoffs is challenging, as it’s tied to broader economic recovery, stabilization of venture capital markets, and companies achieving their desired levels of efficiency and profitability. While the era of widespread, indiscriminate mass layoffs might eventually subside, targeted job cuts are likely to become a more routine part of managing a dynamic workforce in the tech industry. As companies continually adapt to new technologies (like AI), market demands, and economic fluctuations, strategic workforce adjustments, including layoffs in certain areas, may become an ongoing process rather than a distinct "end." A significant slowdown would likely coincide with sustained economic growth, a robust venture funding environment, and a general return to confidence in long-term expansion for tech companies.

How many recent tech layoffs have there been?
Tech layoffs began surging in the 2022 market correction, with an estimated 93,000 U.S. tech workers laid off that year. That figure more than doubled in 2023, reaching around 191,000 U.S. tech employees laid off, according to our Tech Layoffs Tracker. Layoffs abated somewhat in 2024, with around 95,000 reported tech layoffs, and continued in 2025 with approximately 127,000 workers affected. These figures represent the cumulative impact of companies streamlining their operations and correcting for previous hiring sprees. It’s important to remember that many companies do not publicly report detailed layoff figures, and some companies continue hiring for critical positions even after announcing cuts, making precise overall numbers challenging to ascertain.

Is selling the company a good option to avoid layoffs?
Selling a company can be a viable option to prevent outright failure and the associated mass layoffs if a business is struggling with profitability, market share, or access to capital. However, it’s not a guaranteed way to avoid layoffs entirely. Often, when one company acquires another, there are significant redundancies in roles such as HR, finance, marketing, and even engineering, leading to layoffs as the acquiring company integrates operations and streamlines the workforce. As seen with AOL and Bending Spoons, an acquisition can itself be a trigger for job cuts, even if it saves the core business from collapse. The decision to sell is complex and can lead to different outcomes for employees depending on the strategic intent of the acquirer and the integration plan.

What jobs are being cut in tech layoffs?
Tech layoffs have impacted a wide spectrum of departments across many companies. Initially, during the larger waves, many layoffs from the large tech giants primarily affected software engineers, who represented a significant portion of their workforce expansion during the pandemic. However, cuts have also been prevalent in talent and recruiting teams (as hiring slowed), marketing, product management, sales, and administrative support functions. For instance, Google cut roles across its sales, recruiting, product, and engineering teams. Amazon’s layoffs included jobs in its AWS cloud unit, at its social video platform Twitch, and in its advertising department. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg specifically highlighted that the company’s recruiting department would be among the first to see job cuts. Startups, often with leaner engineering teams, sometimes prioritize retaining engineers and instead cut jobs in non-core departments to protect their product development capabilities.

Where can I read recent tech layoff news?
Follow all of our tech layoffs news directly on the Crunchbase News platform here and continuously track which companies are cutting jobs with the comprehensive layoffs tracker provided above.

Where can I see layoffs in the last 24 hours?
While the Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker is not updated precisely every 24 hours, it is a highly dynamic resource. The tracker is updated weekly, if not more frequently, to incorporate the latest job cuts at U.S. tech employers as soon as reliable information becomes available. This ensures that you have access to the most current and relevant data on tech workforce adjustments.

Which companies are hiring for open tech jobs?
Despite the ongoing layoffs in the tech sector, many tech companies continue to actively hire for open roles, particularly in areas deemed critical for future growth or core business functions. You can find out more about Crunchbase’s "Actively Hiring" filter, which allows users to identify companies with multiple open roles, indicating a current recruitment drive. This feature provides a valuable resource for job seekers navigating the dynamic tech employment landscape. You can find all of our job market-related news and insights here.

Can I cite the Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker?
Yes. Please cite Crunchbase News as the source and include a direct link to this Tech Layoffs Tracker page when referencing our data or analysis. Your proper attribution helps us continue to provide valuable insights into the tech industry.