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Received today — 14 August 2025

The list of major companies laying off staff this year includes Oracle, Nextdoor, Intel, Scale AI, and more

Peloton logo outside its New York City studios while woman walks by holding umbrella
Peloton said in August that it is making further cuts to its head count this year.

John Smith/VIEWpress

  • Companies such as Peloton, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, BlackRock, and UPS have trimmed staff this year.
  • In some cases, artificial intelligence is reshaping workforces.
  • See the list of companies letting workers go in 2025.

The list of companies laying off employees this year is growing.

Layoffs and other workforce reductions have continued in 2025, following two years of significant job cuts in tech, media, finance, manufacturing, retail, and energy.

While the reasons for slimming staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid technological change. A World Economic Forum survey found that some 41% of companies worldwide expect to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence.

Companies such as Oracle, CNN, Dropbox, and Block have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Though Amazon has not announced job cuts this year, CEO Andy Jassy told employees in June that the company will need "fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today" in the coming years as it expands its use of generative AI and agents.

Meanwhile, tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF.

Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far, in alphabetical order.

Adidas plans to cut up to 500 jobs in Germany.
Adidas shoes are seen in the store in Hoofddorp, Netherlands.
Despite a strong year, Adidas is planning job cuts.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Adidas said in January that it would reduce the size of its workforce at its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, affecting up to 500 jobs, CNBC reported.

If fully executed, it amounts to a reduction of nearly 9% at the company headquarters, which employs about 5,800 employees, according to the Adidas website.

The news came shortly after the company announced it had outperformed its profit expectations at the end of 2024, touting "better-than-expected" results in the fourth quarter.

An Adidas spokesperson said the company had grown "too complex because of our current operating model."

"To set adidas up for long-term success, we are now starting to look at how we align our operating model with the reality of how we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and number of roles based at our HQ in Herzogenaurach."

The company said it is not a cost-cutting measure and could not confirm concrete numbers.

Ally is cutting less than 5% of workers.
Hands typing on a laptop with the Ally website on its screen.

Ally Bank/Facebook

The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI.

"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, outplacement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally.

Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Automattic, Tumblr's parent, cuts 16% of staff
Logo of Tumblr.

Thiago Prudencio/SOPA/LightRocket/Getty Images

Automattic, the parent company of Tumblr and WordPress, said in April it is cutting 16% of its staff globally. The company's website said it has nearly 1,500 employees.

Automattic's CEO, Matt Mullenweg, said in a note to employees posted online that the company has reached an "important crossroads."

"While our revenue continues to grow, Automattic operates in a highly competitive market, and technology is evolving at unprecedented levels," the note read.

The company is restructuring to improve its "productivity, profitability, and capacity to invest," it added.

The company said it was offering severance and job placement resources to affected employees.

BlackRock is cutting 1% of its workforce.
A black-and-white photo of the BlackRock logo on a building, viewed from below.

Eric Thayer/Reuters

BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, Bloomberg reported in January.

The reductions were 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.

Block to lay off nearly 1,000 workers
Smartphone with Square logo is seen in front of displayed Afterpay logo

REUTERS/Dado Ruvi

Jack Dorsey's fintech company, Block, is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, according to TechCrunch and The Guardian, in its second major workforce reduction in just over a year.

The company, which operates Square, Afterpay, CashApp, and Tidal, is transitioning nearly 200 managers into non-management roles and closing almost 800 open positions, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch.

Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009 after previously leading Twitter, announced the layoffs in March in an internal email titled "smaller block."

The restructuring is part of a broader effort to streamline operations, though Block maintains the changes are not driven by financial targets or AI replacements.

Bloomberg is making cuts in an overhaul of its newsroom
Bloomberg LP NYC office exterior

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Bloomberg is cutting some editorial staff as the company reorganizes its newsroom, according to a memo viewed by BI. The larger strategy aims to have a larger headcount by the end of this year, however.

The newsroom currently employs around 2,700 people, and the changes will merge some smaller teams into larger units, the memo said.

Blue Origin is laying off one-tenth of its workforce
Blue Origin

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Jeff Bezos's rocket company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 10% of its workforce, a move that could affect more than 1,000 employees.

In a memo sent to staff in February and obtained by Business Insider, David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, said the company's priority going forward was "to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness and efficiency for our customers."

Limp specifically identified roles in engineering, research and development, and management as targets.

"We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed," Limp wrote. "It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities."

The news comes after January's debut launch of the company's partially reusable rocket — New Glenn.

Boeing cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program
Boeing Employees Renton Washington

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Boeing announced on February 8 that it plans to cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program amid delays and rising costs related to NASA's Artemis moon exploration missions.

Artemis 2, a crewed flight to orbit the moon on Boeing's space launch system, has been rescheduled from late 2024 to September 2025. Artemis 3, intended to be the first astronaut moon landing in the program, was delayed from late 2025 and is now planned for September 2026.

"To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025," a Boeing spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates."

The company will issue 60-day notices of involuntary layoff to impacted employees "in coming weeks," the spokesperson said.

Boeing cut 10% of its workforce last year.

BP slashed 7,700 staff and contractor positions worldwide
A BP logo on a gas station sign.

John Keeble/Getty Images

BP told Business Insider in January that it planned to cut 4,700 staff and 3,000 contractors, amounting to about 5% of its global workforce.

The cuts were part of a program to "simplify and focus" BP that began last year.

"We are strengthening our competitiveness and building in resilience as we lower our costs, drive performance improvement and play to our distinctive capabilities," the company said.

Bridgewater cut about 90 staff
An office in a forested area with a glass bridge connecting buildings.
Outside Bridgewater Associates' Westport, Connecticut headquarters.

Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater Associates cut 7% of its staff in January 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.

Bumble said it intends to cut 30% of its workforce.
whitney wolfe herd bumble ceo founder
Founder and CEO of Bumble Whitney Wolfe attends Bumble Presents: Empowering Connections at Fair Market on March 9, 2018 in Austin, Texas.

Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Bumble

In a June 23 securities filing, Bumble said it plans to slash 240 roles, about 30% of its workforce. The dating app company said the cuts will result in charges between $13 million and $18 million in its third and fourth quarters.

"We recently made some difficult decisions to adjust our team structure in order to align with our strategic priorities," a Bumble spokesperson said.

They told BI that the decision to lay off over 200 employees wasn't "made lightly."

Burberry says it plans on cutting 1,700 jobs
Burberry logo and flag

Pietro Recchia/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Burberry announced 1,700 job cuts in May, or about 18% of its global workforce, as part of plans to cut costs by about £100 million ($130 million) by 2027.

It plans to end night shifts at its Yorkshire raincoat factory due to production over-capacity.

The British company sunk to an operating loss of £3 million for the year to the end of March, compared with a £418 million profit for the previous 12 months.

Chevron is slashing up to 20% of its global head count
The Chevron logo is displayed at a Chevron gas station.
The Chevron logo is displayed at a Chevron gas station.

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Oil giant Chevron plans to cull 15% to 20% of its global workforce by the end of 2026, the company said in a statement to Business Insider in February.

Chevron employed 45,600 people as of December 2023, which means the layoff could cut 9,000 jobs.

The move aims to reduce costs and simplify the company's business as it completes its acquisition of oil producer Hess, which is held up in legal limbo. It is expected to save the company $2 billion to $3 billion by the end of 2026, the company said.

"Chevron is taking action to simplify our organizational structure, execute faster and more effectively, and position the company for stronger long-term competitiveness," a Chevron spokesperson said in a statement.

The cuts follow a series of layoffs at other oil and gas companies, including BP and natural gas producer EQT.

CNN plans to cut 200 jobs
CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.
CNN is cutting staff in a bid to focus the business on its digital news services.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Cable news giant CNN cut about 200 television-focused roles as part of a digital pivot. The cuts amounted to about 6% of the company's workforce.

In a memo sent to staff on January 23, CNN's CEO Mark Thompson said he aimed to "shift CNN's gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN's future as one of the world's greatest news organizations."

Coty is cutting about 700 jobs
OTY logo is seen displayed on a smartphone and in the background.

Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Coty, which sells cosmetics and fragrances under brands such as Kylie Cosmetics, Calvin Klein, and Burberry, is cutting about 700 jobs.

The company said on April 24 it aimed to cut costs by $130 million a year. Sue Nabi, the CEO, said it aimed to build a "stronger, more resilient Coty that is well-positioned for sustainable growth."

CrowdStrike is cutting about 500 jobs
Crowdstrike logo on a phone screen
The IT outage was triggered by a defect in an update issued by Crowdstrike.

Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Getty Images

CrowdStrike, the Texas-headquartered cybersecurity firm, is cutting about 500 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, as part of a strategic plan to "yield greater efficiencies."

It expects the layoffs to cost between $36 million and $53 million.

CrowdStrike is aiming to generate $10 billion in annual recurring revenue.

The company reported worse-than-expected annual results in March, signaling that it was yet to fully recover from a widespread tech outage linked to CrowdStrike in July 2024.

Disney says it's laying off several hundred employees
Disney logo is seen on the store in Rome, Italy on May 10, 2025. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Disney is carrying out its fourth layoff in the past year.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Disney confirmed to BI on June 2 that it was laying off several hundred employees globally.

Most of the cuts were to roles in marketing for films and TV under the Disney Entertainment division. Other roles affected included employees in publicity, casting, and development, as well as corporate finance.

In March, the company also cut around 200 people from its ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks. In 2024, the company also had several rounds of layoffs.

Shortly after Bob Iger returned to the company as CEO in 2022, he said 7,000 jobs at Disney would be cut as part of a reorganization.

Estée Lauder will cut as many as 7,000 jobs
estee lauder
American multinational skincare, and beauty products brand, Estée Lauder logo seen in Hong Kong.

Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder said in its second-quarter earnings release on February 4 that it will cut between 5,800 and 7,000 jobs as the company restructures over the next two years.

The cuts will focus on "rightsizing" certain teams, and it will look to outsource certain services. The company says it expects annual gross benefits of between $0.8 billion and $1.0 billion before tax.

Geico has axed tens of thousands of workers
geico

Geico

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chair of Insurance Operations Ajit Jain says Geico has reduced its workforce from about 50,000 to about 20,000. Jain revealed the reductions during Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on May 3 but did not detail over what time frame they took place. Berkshire Hathaway is one of Geico's parent companies.

Warren Buffett's company reported its 2025 first-quarter earnings on during the May 3 meeting, saying Geico earned nearly $2.2 billion in pre-tax underwriting.

GrubHub announced 500 job cuts
A Grubhub delivery person rides in Manhattan.
GrubHub said it is focusing on aligning its business with Wonder after the takeover was completed last month.

Andrew Kelly/REUTERS

Grubhub CEO Howard Migdal announced 500 job cuts on February 28 after selling the company to Wonder Group for $650 million.

With more than 2,200 full time employees, the number of cuts will affect more than 20% of Grubhub's previous workforce.

According to Reuters, Just Eat Takeaway, an Amsterdam-listed company, sold Grubhub at a steep loss compared to the billions it paid a few years prior after grappling with slowing growth and high taxes.

HPE is laying off 2,500 employees
A man with grey hair wears a blue collared shirt and dark blue shirt. He gestures as he speaks while sitting on a stage in front of a large blue screen.
US company Hewlett Packard Enterprise President and Chief Officer Executive Antonio Neri gives a conference at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2024.

PAU BARRENA / AFP

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is cutting 2,500 jobs, or 5% of its employee base, CEO Antonio Neri said on an earnings call on March 6. The cuts are expected take to take place over the next 12 to 18 months.

"Doing so will better align our cost structure to our business mix and long-term strategy," Neri said. The company expects to save $350 million by 2027 because of the reduction.

HPE plummeted about 20% after hours on March 6 after it said business would be affected by recent tariffs, slow server and cloud sales, and "execution issues."

Intel to cut at least 15% of its factory workers
The Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California
The Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California

Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Chipmaker Intel is laying off more than 5,000 employees across four US states, according to a July 16 government filing.

Most of the cuts are happening in California and Oregon, while others are in Texas and Arizona, per updated Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, filings.

Intel began laying off employees in July as part of planned job cuts, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The company told staff on June 14 to expect 15% to 20% of employees in its Foundry division to be laid off this summer, according to a memo reported by The Oregonian. Intel confirmed the authenticity of the memo to BI but declined to comment on its contents.

As of December 2024, Intel employed about 108,900 people. In its annual report, the company told investors that it would reduce its "core Intel workforce" by about 15% in early 2025.

"Removing organizational complexity and empowering our engineers will enable us to better serve the needs of our customers and strengthen our execution," an Intel spokesperson told BI.

Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins University will cut over 2,000 jobs after losing $800 million in funding from USAID.

"This is a difficult day for our entire community," a spokesperson told BI. "The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally."

The news comes after the Trump administration slashed USAID personnel down from over 10,000 to around 300. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently confirmed that 83% of the agency's programs are now dead.

"We can confirm that the elimination of foreign aid funding has led to the loss of 1,975 positions in 44 countries internationally and 247 in the United States in the affected programs," the Johns Hopkins spokesperson said. "An additional 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed with a reduced schedule."

The layoffs at Johns Hopkins represent the "largest" in the university's history, CNN reported. They'll primarily affect the schools of medicine and public health, along with the Center for Communication Programs and Jhpiego, a nonprofit with a focus on preventing diseases and bolstering women's health, according to the report.

Kohl's is reducing about 10% of its roles
A Kohl's department store in Miami.
A Kohl's department store in Miami.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Department store Kohl's announced on January 28 that it reduced about 10% of its corporate roles to "increase efficiencies" and "improve profitability for the long-term health and benefit of the business," a spokesperson told BI.

"Kohl's reduced approximately 10 percent of the roles that report into its corporate offices," the spokesperson said. "More than half of the total reduction will come from closing open positions while the remainder of the positions were currently held by our associates."

Less than 200 existing employees of the company would be impacted, she added.

This follows the company's announcement on January 9 that it would shutter 27 underperforming stores across 15 states by April.

The retailer has been struggling with declining sales, reporting an 8.8% decline in net sales in the third quarter of 2024.

Its previous CEO, Tom Kingsbury, stepped down on January 15. The company's board appointed Ashley Buchanan, a retail veteran who had held top jobs in The Michaels Companies, Macy's, and Walmart, as the new CEO.

Meta is cutting 5% of its workforce
Meta sign
Meta slashed its DEI team in January.

Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff he "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and will act quickly to "move out low-performers," according to an internal memo seen by BI in January.

Those cuts started in February, according to records obtained by BI. Teams overseeing Facebook, the Horizon virtual reality platform, as well as logistics were among the hardest hit.

In April, Meta also laid off an undisclosed number of employees on the Reality Labs virtual reality division.

Previously, the company had laid off more than 21,000 workers since 2022.

Microchip Technology is slashing 2,000 jobs
Semiconductor manufacturing.
Nvidia semiconductor manufacturing.

Krystian Nawrocki/Getty Images

Microchip Technology is cutting its head count across the company by around 2,000 employees, the semiconductor company said on March 3.

The company estimated that it would incur between $30 million and $40 million in costs, including severance, severance benefits, and other restructuring costs.

The cuts would be communicated to employees in the March quarter and fully implemented by the end of the June quarter.

Last year, Microchip announced it was closing its Tempe, Arizona, facility because of slower-than-anticipated orders. The closure begins in May 2025 and is expected to affect 500 jobs.

Microchip's stock had fallen over 33% in the past year.

Microsoft has made several rounds of cuts this year
the Microsoft logo on a building.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Microsoft cut an unspecified number of jobs in January based on employees' performance.

Workers were told that they wouldn't receive severance and that their benefits, such as medical insurance, would stop immediately, BI reported.

The company also laid off some employees in January at divisions including gaming and sales. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to say how many jobs were cut on the affected teams.

In May, the company announced layoffs affecting about 6,000 workers.

Another round of layoffs in July will affect less than 4% of its total workforce, or roughly 9,000 employees, based on its head count of around 220,000.

Morgan Stanley plans cuts for the end of March
Morgan Stanley

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Morgan Stanley is set to initiate a round of layoffs beginning at the end of March. The firm is eyeing cuts to about 2% to 3% of its global workforce, which would equate to between 1,600 to 2,400 jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter who confirmed the reductions to BI.

The firm's cuts are driven by several imperatives, the person said, pointing to considerations like operational efficiency, evolving business priorities, and individual employees' performance. The person said the cuts are not related to broader market conditions, such as the recent slowdown in mergers and acquisitions that's arrested momentum on Wall Street.

Some MS staffers will be excluded from the cuts, however — namely, the bank's battalion of financial advisors — though some who assist them, such as administrative personnel in its wealth-management unit, could be affected by the layoffs, the person added.

Nextdoor is slashing 12% of its staff
Nextdoor app

Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

Neighborhood social networking company Nextdoor is cutting 12% of its staff, or 67 jobs, it said on August 7 in its second-quarter earnings report. The move is part of CEO Nirav Tolia's plan to achieve profitability and reorganize the struggling company.

The layoffs are expected to reduce operating expenses by about $30 million, it said in the earnings report.

The company reported a net loss of $15 million, compared to $43 million year-over-year.

Nissan says it will cut 20,000 jobs by 2027
Nissan

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

Japanese car giant Nissan is cutting 20,000 jobs by 2027 and reducing the number of factories it operates from 17 to 10 as it struggles with a dire financial situation.

The job losses include the 9,000 layoffs announced late last year, and come as the automaker faces headwinds from US tariffs on imported vehicles and collapsing sales in China.

Nissan reported a net loss of 671 billion yen ($4.5 billion) for the 2024 financial year, and said it would not issue an operating profit forecast for 2025 because of tariff uncertainty.

Oracle is reportedly cutting jobs from its cloud division.
Oracle office in Santa Monica, California
Oracle office in Santa Monica, California

Richard Vogel/AP

Oracle is cutting jobs in its cloud unit, Bloomberg reported. The cuts come as the company works to curb costs amid spending on AI infrastructure.

Sources familiar with the cuts told Bloomberg that some of the cuts were related to performance issues.

Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Panasonic is cutting 10,000 jobs
panasonic
A man looks at television sets by Japanese firm Panasonic at an electronics retailer in Tokyo June 10, 2015.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Panasonic, the Japanese-headquartered multinational electronics manufacturer, plans to cut 10,000 jobs this financial year, which ends in March 2026. The cuts will affect 5,000 roles in Japan and 5,000 overseas.

In a statement on May 9, the company said it planned to "thoroughly review operational efficiency … mainly in sales and indirect departments, and reevaluate the numbers of organisations and personnel actually needed."

"Through these measures, the company will optimize our personnel on a global scale," the statement added.

Paramount is cutting 3.5% of its US workforce
Paramount on building

PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images

Paramount told employees it would be laying off 3.5% of US-based staff based in the US, per a memo reported by CNBC on June 10, citing industry-wide declines and a challenging macroeconomic environment.

The move comes after the media company cut 15% of jobs last year to cut costs. Paramount had 18,600 employees at the end of 2024.

It is awaiting regulatory approval of its merger with Skydance Media.

Peloton is looking for $100 million in run-rate savings by next year
FILE PHOTO: A Peloton exercise bike is seen after the ringing of the opening bell for the company's IPO at the Nasdaq Market site in New York City, New York, U.S., September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
A Peloton exercise bike is seen after the ringing of the opening bell for the company's IPO at the Nasdaq Market site in New York City

Reuters

Peloton said in its August earnings report that it would cut its global headcount as part of an effort to find $100 million in run-rate cost savings by the end of the next fiscal year.

"As of today, we will have actioned about roughly half of the run rate savings through the reductions in our workforce and we expect to achieve the remainder throughout the balance of the year," CFO Elizabeth Coddington told investors on the earnings call.

The company employed about 2,900 people last year, and approximately 6% of the workforce will be affected by the reductions, Reuters reported.

Porsche is cutting 3,900 jobs over the next few years
The Porsche logo on the front trunk lid of a gold 2025 Porsche Taycan GTS EV sedan.
The Porsche logo on the front of a 2025 Porsche Taycan GTS EV.

Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider

Porsche said on March 12 that it plans to cut 3,900 jobs in the coming years.

About 2,000 of the reductions will come with the expiration of fixed-term contractor positions, the German automaker said. The company will make the other 1,900 reductions by 2029 through natural attrition and limiting hiring, it said.

Porsche said it also plans to discuss more potential changes with labor leaders in the second half of the year. "This will also make Porsche even more efficient in the medium and long term," the company said.

PwC is laying off approximately 2% of its US workforce
PwC, or Pricewaterhousecoopers.
PwC office in Washington D.C. in the United States of America, on July 11th, 2024. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The Big Four accounting firm said it's cutting roughly 1,500 jobs in the US because its low attrition rates mean not enough people are leaving by choice.

PwC's layoffs began on May 5 and mostly affect the firm's audit and tax lines, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

"This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step," a PwC spokesperson said.

Salesforce is cutting more than 1,000 jobs
The outside of Salesforce Tower with the Salesforce logo, which is shaped like a cloud.

Gary Hershorn / Getty Images

Bloomberg reported in February that Salesforce, a cloud-based customer management software company, will slash more than 1,000 jobs from its nearly 73,000-strong workforce.

Affected employees will be eligible to apply to open internal roles, the outlet reported. The company is hiring salespeople focused on the company's new AI-powered products.

The cuts come despite Salesforce reporting a strong financial performance during its third-quarter earnings in December.

Salesforce did not respond to a request for comment.

Scale AI is cutting 14% of its workforce
Scale AI office
Scale AI is laying off 14% of its full time staff and hundreds of contractors.

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

On July 16, Scale AI laid off about 200 full-time employees and 500 contractors, according to the company.

The 200 full-time cuts make up 14% of the data labeling startup's 1,400-person workforce.

The company is restructuring its generative AI group, according to an email from Scale's interim CEO, Jason Droege, obtained by Business Insider.

The cuts follow Meta's $14 billion investment in Scale AI in June as part of a blockbuster deal. The deal included the hiring of Scale's ex-CEO, Alexandr Wang, and the purchase of equity in almost half of the startup.

Sonos cuts about 200 jobs
Sonos

Christoph Dernbach/picture alliance via Getty Images

Sonos, a California-based audio equipment company, said in a February 5 release that it's cutting about 200 roles.

The announcement came nearly a month after Sonos CEO Patrick Spence stepped down following a disastrous app rollout. Interim CEO Tom Conrad said in the statement that the layoffs were part of an effort to create a "simpler organization."

Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Boeing plane at an airport.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737.

AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan announced in February that the company is laying off 15% of its corporate staff, or about 1,750 employees.

He said affected workers will keep their pay, benefits, and bonuses through late April, when the separations will take effect.

The company told investors the cuts would save about $210 million this year and $300 million in 2026.

The move comes as Southwest tries to cut costs amid profitability problems. Jordan said this is the first significant layoff the company has had in its 53-year history.

An activist hedge fund took a stake in Southwest in June and has since helped restructure its board and change its business model to keep up with a changing industry. For example, it plans to end its long-standing open-seating policy to generate more seating revenue.

In recent months, the company has also reduced flight crew positions in Atlanta to cut costs.

Starbucks is laying off 1,100 corporate staff
A customer wearing a magenta coat and black earmuffs opens the door and walks into a Starbucks store in New York City.

ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

Starbucks planned to notify 1,100 corporate employees that they had been laid off on February 25.

CEO Brian Niccol said in a memo that the layoffs will make Starbucks "operate more efficiently, increase accountability, reduce complexity and drive better integration."

The layoffs won't affect employees at Starbucks stores, the company said.

Niccol told employees that layoffs were on the way in a separate memo in January. The company is trying to improve results after sales slid last year.

Stripe laid off 300 employees
The logo for Stripe.
Stripe.

Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Payments platform Stripe laid off 300 employees, primarily in product, engineering, and operations, according to a January 20 memo obtained by BI.

Chief people officer Rob McIntosh said in the memo that the company still planned on growing its head count to about 10,000 employees by the end of the year.

UPS is cutting 20,000 jobs
A UPS Delivery Driver

Vincent Alban/REUTERS

UPS announced on April 29 that it plans to cut 20,000 jobs this year — about 4% of its global workforce — as part of a shift toward automation and a strategic reduction in business with Amazon.

"With our action, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS," the company's CEO, Carol Tomé, said in a statement.

The move follows a sharp 16% drop in Amazon package volume in Q4 and is part of a plan to halve its Amazon business by mid-2026. UPS will also close 73 US buildings by June and automate 400 facilities to reduce labor dependency.

The Teamsters union have said they would fight any layoffs affecting its members.

The Washington Post cut 4% of its non-newsroom workforce
The Washington Post building

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Washington Post eliminated fewer than 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, Reuters reported in January.

A spokesperson told the news agency that the cuts wouldn't affect the newsroom: "The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are."

Wayfair laid off 340 tech employees
Wayfair logo on building
Wayfair laid off about 340 tech employees.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Wayfair announced in an SEC filing on March 7 that it would eliminate its Austin Technology Development Center and lay off around 340 tech workers.

The reorg comes as the technology team has accomplished "significant modernization and replatforming milestones," the company said in the filing. Wayfair said it plans to refocus resources and streamline operations to promote its "next phase of growth."

"With the foundation of this transformation now in place, our technology needs have shifted," the company said.

Wayfair expects to take on $33 to $38 million in costs as a result of the reorganization, consisting of severance, cash employee-related costs, benefits, and transitional costs.

Workday cut more than 8% of its workforce
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Workday said it's cutting 8.5% of its workforce and focusing on AI.

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Workday, the human-resources software company, said in February that it is cutting 8.5% of its workforce, or around 1,750 employees. The layoffs came as the company focuses more on artificial intelligence.

In a note to employees, CEO Carl Eschenbach said that Workday will focus on hiring in areas related to artificial intelligence and work to expand its global presence.

"The environment we're operating in today demands a new approach, particularly given our size and scale," Eschenbach wrote. He said that affected employees will get at least 12 weeks of pay.

Is your company conducting layoffs? Got a tip?
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Anthropic CEO says AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs

28 May 2025 at 18:51
Dario Amodei World Economic Forum
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI's rise could result in a spike in unemployment within the next five years.

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  • Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said AI could soon eliminate 50% of entry-level office jobs.
  • The AI CEO said that companies and the government are "sugarcoating" the risks of AI.
  • Recent data shows Big Tech hiring of new grads has dropped 50% since pre-pandemic, partly due to AI.

After spending the day promoting his company's AI technology at a developer conference, Anthropic's CEO issued a warning: AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years.

"We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Dario Amodei told Axios in an interview published Wednesday. "I don't think this is on people's radar."

The 42-year-old CEO added that unemployment could spike between 10% and 20% in the next five years. He told Axios he wanted to share his concerns to get the government and other AI companies to prepare the country for what's to come.

"Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen," Amodei said. "It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it."

Amodei said the development of large language models is advancing rapidly, and they're becoming capable of matching and exceeding human performance. He said the US government has remained quiet about the issue, fearing workers would panic or the country could fall behind China in the AI race.

Meanwhile, business leaders are seeing savings from AI while most workers remain unaware of the changes that are evolving, Amodei said.

He added that AI companies and the government need to stop "sugarcoating" the risks of mass job elimination in fields including technology, finance, law, and consulting. He said entry-level jobs are especially at risk.

Amodei's comments come as Big Tech firms' hiring of new grads dropped about 50% from pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report by the venture capital firm SignalFire. The report said that's due in part to AI adoption.

A round of brutal layoffs swept the tech industry in 2023, with hundreds of thousands of jobs eliminated as companies looked to slash costs. While SignalFire's report said hiring for mid and senior-level roles saw an uptick in 2024, entry-level positions never quite bounced back.

In 2024, early-career candidates accounted for 7% of total hires at Big Tech firms, down by 25% from 2023, the report said. At startups, that number is just 6%, down by 11% from the year prior.

SignalFire's findings suggest that tech companies are prioritizing hiring more seasoned professionals and often filling posted junior roles with senior candidates.

Heather Doshay, a partner who leads people and recruiting programs at SignalFire, told Business Insider that "AI is doing what interns and new grads used to do."

"Now, you can hire one experienced worker, equip them with AI tooling, and they can produce the output of the junior worker on top of their own — without the overhead," Doshay said.

AI can't entirely account for the sudden shrinkage in early-career prospects. The report also said that negative perceptions of Gen Z employees and tighter budgets across the industry are contributing to tech's apparent reluctance to hire new grads.

"AI isn't stealing job categories outright — it's absorbing the lowest-skill tasks," Doshay said. "That shifts the burden to universities, boot camps, and candidates to level up faster."

To adapt to the rapidly changing times, she suggests new grads think of AI as a collaborator, rather than a competitor.

"Level up your capabilities to operate like someone more experienced by embracing a resourceful ownership mindset and delegating to AI," Doshay said. "There's so much available on the internet to be self-taught, and you should be sponging it up."

Amodei's chilling message comes after the company recently revealed that its chatbot Claude Opus 4 exhibited "extreme blackmail behavior" after gaining access to fictional emails that said it would be shut down. While the company was transparent with the public about the results, it still released the next version of the chatbot.

It's not the first time Amodei has warned the public about the risks of AI. On an episode of The New York Times' "Hard Fork" podcast in February, the CEO said the possibility of "misuse" by bad actors could threaten millions of lives. He said the risk could come as early as "2025 or 2026," though he didn't know exactly when it would present "real risk."

Anthropic has emphasized the importance of third-party safety assessments and regularly shares the risks uncovered by its red-teaming efforts. Other companies have taken similar steps, relying on third-party evaluations to test their AI systems. OpenAI, for example, says on its website that its API and ChatGPT business products undergo routine third-party testing to "identify security weaknesses before they can be exploited by malicious actors."

Amodei acknowledged to Axios the irony of the situation — as he shares the risks of AI, he's simultaneously building and selling the products he's warning about. But he said the people who are most involved in building AI have an obligation to be up front about its direction.

"It's a very strange set of dynamics, where we're saying: 'You should be worried about where the technology we're building is going,'" he said.

Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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LinkedIn cofounder says students should expect tests to get harder to cheat with ChatGPT — and to involve an AI examiner

15 May 2025 at 18:09
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman prompts AI tools daily.
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman says AI should be a part of college curriculums.

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  • Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn and partner at VC firm Greylock, says college assessments need to change in the AI era.
  • Different kinds of tests could force students to learn more deeply, he said in a recent podcast interview.
  • Oral exams would require students to develop greater knowledge, rather than relying on AI, he added.

AI can make it easier to game traditional college assessments like essays — so the way students are tested is likely to change, says LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman.

As a result, he added, students should expect college exams to become harder to fake their way through and to include an AI examiner.

"Wishing for the 1950s past is a bad mistake," Hoffman said on an episode of his podcast Possible, which he co-hosts. "The fact that universities have not changed, and it's like, 'Well, but I already have my curriculum, and this is the way I've been teaching it for the last, X decades,' et cetera."

Concerns regarding AI-driven academic dishonesty have been on teachers' minds since ChatGPT took off in late 2022. Plenty of students do use LLMs as homework help machines, rather than slogging through the work themselves. The current way that students are using AI to cut corners, Hoffman said, is circumventing the "whole point" of the educational system: learning.

"Obviously a student goes, 'Huh, I could spend 30 hours writing an essay, or I could spend 90 minutes with my ChatGPT, Claude, Pi — whatever — prompting and generate something for that,'" Hoffman said. "And obviously, to some degree, they're underserving what they actually really need."

The LinkedIn cofounder isn't an advocate for keeping AI out of schools — on the contrary, he believes there are ways in which it could aid learning, rather than kneecapping it. For instance, he thinks integrating AI into the curriculum could be more helpful than trying to stave off student usage.

"Whether it's an essay or an oral exam or anything else — you're going to go in and the AI examiner is going to be with you doing that," Hoffman said. "And actually, in fact, that will be harder to fake than the pre-AI times."

Prior to the advent of AI, Hoffman said, ways to "hack" the educational system already existed, such as piling on just enough knowledge to pass a written test or rushing to complete a passable essay that didn't dive much deeper than surface level. Potential AI examiners aside, Hoffman suggests that assessments like oral tests, which he believes are more difficult than written, could force students to study more intensely and absorb more overall.

"Part of the reason why oral exams are hard — generally reserved for Ph.D. students, sometimes master's students, et cetera — is because actually, in fact, to be prepared for oral exams, you got to be across the whole zoom," Hoffman said.

"Now, let's think if every class had an oral exam essentially on it," he added. "Ooh, you're going to have to learn a whole lot more in order to do this. And I think that's ultimately how this stuff will be."

There are also less drastic ways that teachers could be using AI to their advantage, Hoffman added, that don't require them to entirely rewrite their curriculums. For instance, if they believe that AI essays are subpar, they can provide students with examples of what not to do.

"Alright, so you're teaching a class on Jane Austen and her relevance to, call it, early literary criticism, or something like that," he said. "And you say, 'Okay, well I went to ChatGPT and I generated 10 essays, and here's the 10. These are D minuses. Do better.'"

The most important thing, Hoffman said, is that teachers bring AI into the classroom in some way, big or small, if only to gain a better understanding of how it can be applied in their fields. No matter their focus areas, it would be to their — and their students' — detriment to "ignore the new tool," he said.

"We're in a disruptive moment," Hoffman said. "We have a bunch of professors, just like classic, established professionals who go, 'I don't want to be disrupted. I want to keep my curriculum the way it is. I want to keep doing the thing that I'm doing.' And it's like, 'Well, no, you can't,' right? And so you need to be learning this."

Hoffman, who didn't immediately respond to a request for further comment on the topic, argues it's now an educator's responsibility to get their students ready to work with AI, given that he believes it will transform their future workplaces, as well.

"The most central thing is preparing students to be capable, healthy, happy participants in the new world," he said. "And obviously your ability to engage with, deploy, leverage, utilize, AI — AI agents, et cetera — is going to be absolutely essential."

Are you a teacher changing your approach to assignments or exams in the age of ChatGPT? Contact the author at [email protected]

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Bill Gates says he's glad his daughter didn't ask him to back her business

25 April 2025 at 16:50
Bill Gates and his daughter Phoebe arrive for TIME 100 Gala at Lincoln Center in New York on June 8, 2022.
Bill Gates said his youngest daughter "luckily" didn't ask him to back her business, Phia.

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  • Phoebe Gates, youngest daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founded her own business.
  • Bill Gates said she 'luckily' didn't ask for funding to get Phia, an e-commerce tool, off the ground.
  • The Gateses had previously told her that dropping out to start a company wasn't an option.

Phoebe Gates, the youngest of Bill and Melinda Gates's children, has made her own entry into the business world.

Her billionaire father is glad he didn't have to fund it.

"I thought, 'Oh boy, she's going to come and ask,'" Gates told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday.

Gates would've backed his daughter's business, but his help would've come with strings — and that would have made things complicated, he said.

"I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky, and I probably would have been overly nice, but wondered if it was the right thing to do. Luckily, it never happened," he said.

Phia, which launched April 24, offers price comparisons for clothing across 40,000 linked sites, aiming to bring users the best deals.

On an episode earlier this year of "The Burnouts," the podcast Phoebe Gates hosts with her former roommate and current cofounder Sofia Kianni, Gates said her father was apprehensive about her starting a business.

And Phoebe dropping out of college — like Bill did when he founded Microsoft — was totally out of the question.

"I literally never hear my dad talk about the start of Microsoft," Gates said. "I literally mostly just remember him talking about the foundation. I remember me wanting to start the company and him being like, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'"

Gates graduated from Stanford in 2024 with a degree in human biology, having completed her education in just three years.

"They were very much like, 'You need to finish your degree; you don't just get to like, drop out and do a company.' Which is so funny because my dad literally did that, and that's, like, the reason I'm able to go to Stanford or have my tuition paid," Gates said.

Gates felt like a "nepo baby" in her freshman year, she said at the time. And though her father has previously said he plans on allowing his kids to inherit only 1% of his total wealth — that still amounts to millions each.

"If the business is successful, people will say, 'It's because of her family,'" Gates told The New York Times. "And a huge portion of that is true. I never would have been able to go to Stanford, or have such an amazing upbringing, or feel the drive to do something, if it wasn't for my parents. But I also feel a huge amount of internalized pressure."

So far, Gates and Kianni have secured over half a million dollars in funding — some from a VC firm, some from angel investors, according to The Times.

Gates said her business venture is tapping a huge market.

"We're roommates fighting about clothing," Gates told the New York Times. "We are the girls who are scouring shopping sites for deals. And there are, frankly, thousands of other young women like us."

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