Moving past the worst of it The change in sentiment around layoffs seen in our survey results is also re昀氀ected in industry data on the volume of publicly-disclosed layoffs. The latter half of 2022 and the early months of this year marked the most challenging period for employees in the tech industry. A direct response to the 昀椀nancial downturn is evident in the increased number of layoffs during that period. By the end of this year, globally almost 300,000 employees will have been impacted. This global phenomenon has, of course, been severely felt in Europe. A large number of European startups have had to downsize their workforce to control costs and manage their runway. In 2023 to date, tech compa- nies headquartered in Europe have accounted for around 10% of all layoffs globally. It’s important to note that these 昀椀gures do not tell the full story, as many announcements on layoffs do not disclose speci昀椀c numbers of impacted employees, and even more rounds of redundancies go unreported. Nevertheless, the data underlines the fact that layoffs in Europe have shown signs of stabilising since the 昀椀rst half of the year. That being said, elevated layoffs should still be expected into 2024, as further companies fail to secure the funding or growth needed to sustain current cost levels. Number of tech employee layoffs announced per month, Jan 2022 to Sep 2023 RoW Europe 100k 80k f f o d i 60k a l s e e y o l p m e 40k f o # 20k 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 n b r r y n l g p t v c n b r r y n ul g p a e a p a u Ju u e c o e a e a Ap a u J u e J F M A M J A S O N D J F M M J A S Sources: Notes: Data is as of 30 September 2023. 163 | Talent