SAN JOSE Two tech companies, IBM and Infineon, have disclosed new rounds of employment cutbacks that will erase the jobs of more than 100 tech workers in the Bay Area. The staffing reductions extend what has turned out to be a difficult two weeks for Bay Area tech workers, who are collectively facing the loss of several hundred jobs in the region as a result of recent layoff disclosures by their employers.
in 2025, the tech industry had the highest recorded number of layoffs for the month of October: 33,281 compared with 5,639 in September. Tech companies have announced 141,159 job cuts this year compared with 120,470 during the same period in 2024. Total year-to-date job cuts in the U.S. are at their highest level since the pandemic struck in 2020, and t he firm says that layoffs for the month of October haven't been this high since 2003
Karp notes that while the company has "grown quite significantly," it has kept to its "constraints." "Our head count is one manifestation of this disciplined approach," Karp wrote in the letter to shareholders. "The casual expansion of our ranks would have diminished the need to lean even more heavily on the strength of our software and the Ontology and to ensure their continued maturation.
If you are majoring in computer science or computer engineering right now, good luck on finding a good job when you get your diploma - even if you graduate from a top program. That's the sobering takeaway from Hany Farid, a deepfake expert at the University of California, Berkeley, who appeared on NOVA's "Particles of Thought" podcast to talk the current state of AI, the tech job situation that's been shredded by multiple lay offs, and how should tech graduates navigate this rocky new landscape.
In April, I went through my third tech layoff in two years, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back: I was leaving tech behind. I just got married this summer, and it made me think about what I want my life to look like in five or 10 years. I had thought about leaving tech to go into education before, but it was hard to justify leaving when I was making up to $110,00 a year with just a bachelor's degree.