Tech companies around the world have laid off more than 153,000 employees since the start of 2023 as the technology sector faces increasing pressures on both costs and revenues.

According to data from Layoffs.fyi, which tracks layoffs, the number of layoffs at tech companies for 2023 has increased more than sixfold since mid-January.

Data indicates that 2023 will surpass 2022 as the year to see the most layoffs in the tech industry.

A further 528 tech companies have laid off 153,598 employees since the start of the year, compared to 1,024 last year for a total of 154,336.

Last week, Amazon announced that it would cut another 9,000 jobs in addition to the 18,000 it announced in January.

Meta, the parent company that owns social networking site Facebook, cut 10,000 jobs two weeks ago. Last month, Ericsson cut 8,500 jobs, Philips cut 6,000 jobs and IBM cut 3,900 jobs.

And last January, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees.

This year several companies have announced several job cuts, each exceeding a thousand, including Yahoo, Twilio, Zoom and PayPal, while Dell also shed more. More than 6000 jobs last February.

With interest rates rising repeatedly over the past year and this year and the prospect of the world’s largest economy slipping into recession, tech companies in the U.S. and elsewhere have turned to layoffs as a way to move companies toward greater operational efficiency. .

In an effort to curb the country’s highest inflation in more than four decades, the central bank has raised interest rates in nine consecutive meetings, starting in March last year, by a total of 475 basis points. This is the fastest rate hike since the 1980s.

The layoffs come in the wake of over-employment at these companies due to the recent technological boom following the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 virus and the issuance of work-from-home orders to prevent its spread. The expansion of technology companies at that time.