Bay Area tech workers endure grim 2025 as big companies reveal layoffs

The Bay Area has lost more than 11,000 tech jobs so far in 2025, a slump in hiring punctuated by disclosures of fresh layoffs in the region by some big players such as Google, Walmart and Microsoft.

The protracted hiring slump is a reminder that the tech industry is no longer a robust engine that helps to power the Bay Area economy.

The tech sector, instead, has begun to weigh down hiring in the Bay Area job market.

In the most recent rounds of layoffs, Walmart, Google and Microsoft have disclosed their intentions to eliminate a combined 168 jobs, according to WARN letters the companies sent to the state Employment Development Department.

Here are some of the details of newly filed WARN notices that point to upcoming job cuts for some tech companies in the Bay Area:

— Walmart, 108 job cuts affecting tech workers at a San Bruno site where the retailing titan crafts e-commerce and online services. The layoffs are scheduled for Aug. 22.

— Google, 53 layoffs in Sunnyvale. The search giant scheduled the downsizing for July 6.

— Microsoft, eight staffing reductions in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. The software titan’s cutbacks are slated to occur Aug. 1.

— Cruise, one job cut in San Francisco. The former autonomous vehicle company said the job cut occurred May 30.

All of the job cuts were described as permanent by the various companies.

The weakness in the Bay Area tech industry so far in 2025 is widespread, according to seasonally adjusted estimates that Beacon Economics derived from the monthly reports released by the state EDD.

Of the 11,200 net loss in tech jobs for the Bay Area, the worst losses occurred in the San Francisco-San Mateo region.

The nosedive in tech employment has materialized in the San Francisco metro area despite some optimistic assessments that the fledgling artificial intelligence industry was providing a jobs lift to San Francisco.

Here is how tech job trends looked in the Bay Area’s three largest urban centers over the first four months of 2025, according to this news organization’s compilation of the Beacon Economics industry estimates:

— San Francisco-San Mateo suffered a net loss of 5,400 tech jobs.

— The South Bay lost 3,400 tech jobs.

— The East Bay shed a net total of 2,100 tech jobs.

In the North Bay, Sonoma County lost 200 tech jobs, and Marin County lost 100 tech positions. Tech job totals were unchanged in Solano County and Napa County over the first four months of this year.

The tech industry has entered what appears to be a protracted period of attempting to right-size its operations in the Bay Area now that coronavirus-linked business shutdowns have faded into the background.

During the first year or two of the coronavirus outbreak, tech companies staged massive hiring sprees to meet the demand for services and equipment to help people work and learn from remote locations.

After the shutdowns ended and demand for remote tech products faded, tech companies determined they had over-hired during the coronavirus years and then embarked on widespread layoffs to rein in staffing levels.

At the same time, tech companies jumped into new fields such as artificial intelligence even as they downsized in sectors that did not appear to be as promising as AI.