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US tech jobs axed last year

by on17 February 2017


96,017 jobs cut in 2016

Layoffs at computer, electronics, and telecommunications companies rose by 21 percent last year.

Beancounters at the global outplacement outfit Challenger, Gray & Christmas said that more than 96,017 US jobs were cut in 2016, compared to 79,315 the prior year.

Tech layoffs accounted for 18 percent of the total 526,915 US job cuts announced in 2016.

Of the 2016 total, some 66,821of the layoffs came from computer companies, up seven percent year over year.

Challenger attributed much of that increase to cuts made by Dell which merged with EMC. In preparation for that combination, layoffs were instituted across EMC and its constituent companies, including VMware.

But Dell was not entirely to blame Intel, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft all saw the mighty HR axeman coming down the corridors.

For example, Chipzilla’s move to axe 12,000 people or 11 percent of its workforce—was made because the company has struggled in the mobile device market.

John Challenger, chief executive of the outplacement firm added that the networking giant Cisco cut 5,500 jobs or 7 per cent of its headcount to better compete with cloud competitors like Amazon Web Services.

It does not look like things are going to get much better either. The industry is gutting itself as companies shift focus to cloud-based computing and mobile systems, Challenger warned.

Last modified on 17 February 2017
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