As the era of low interest rates came to a halt over the past two years, hundreds of tech companies slashed jobs.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, cut 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global workforce, at the start of 2023. Meta laid off more than 10,000 employees, or roughly 13% of its staff. So did other household names, including Microsoft, Amazon and Disney.

More than 260,000 tech employees were laid off in 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site that tracks job cuts across the tech industry.

Google just announced more cuts this month.

Some executives were squeamish about using the term “laid off,” so many cloaked such discussions in opaque language.

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“The term ‘rightsizing’ sounds more neutral,” said Roger Lee, creator of Layoffs.fyi, adding that the phrase is also used “to convey the fact that these companies did a lot of hiring the past couple years, and now realize, given the current economic reality, it makes sense for the business to go back to a smaller size.”

Continue here: The New York Times