Hundreds of Layoffs Hit Silicon Valley
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Silicon Valley is facing another wave of job losses, as several leading tech companies have announced hundreds of layoffs across the Bay Area, according to recent state filings.
The companies involved include LinkedIn, Chegg, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP), which collectively informed the California Employment Development Department (EDD) in May of their plans to eliminate over 400 positions, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices.
Newsweek reached out to the companies announcing layoffs via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The latest reductions add to a growing tally of technology job cuts in California this year, signaling persistent workforce instability in a region long seen as the nation's technology powerhouse. The surge in layoffs comes as Silicon Valley's tech sector grapples with shifting business strategies and an accelerating push toward artificial intelligence.
What To Know
According to official WARN notices, LinkedIn has eliminated over 280 roles in May, including 159 employees from its Mountain View office alone. Educational tech firm Chegg laid off 88 employees in Santa Clara on the same date, May 15. Two weeks earlier, HP implemented 61 job cuts in San Jose.
All three companies described the layoffs as permanent in their WARN notices to the California EDD.
Reasons were not given alongside the notices, though the companies have in the past defended the need for restructuring to cut costs and improve efficiencies in an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic climate.
A LinkedIn office in San Francisco, California, as seen on July 26, 2023.
A LinkedIn office in San Francisco, California, as seen on July 26, 2023.Upon releasing its first-quarter earnings in May, which revealed a 30 percent year-over-year drop in revenue, Chegg announced that it would cut its headcount by around 22 percent as the company takes "proactive measures to align costs with our business outlook."
In its announcement, Chegg also noted the increased adoption of AI by students over traditional education tools.
"Language model companies are turning to academia for validation, with OpenAI recently giving college students free access to Chat GPT Plus, and Anthropic launching a free education offering," the company said. Chegg added that it plans to close its physical offices in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2025.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week, HP stated that it expects to implement "gross workforce reductions of approximately 1,000 to 2,000 employees" this year, in addition to the 7,000 cuts outlined in its Fiscal 2023 Plan.
CFO Karen Parkhill said in a February earnings call that the "incremental structural savings" HP was pursuing would "continue to be a key lever to help offset macro and geopolitical uncertainties while also continuing to fuel investment in our key growth areas and AI innovation."
2025 Layoff Trends and Context
The Bay Area layoffs extend beyond these three companies. Technology firms in California announced 17,874 layoffs in the first quarter of the year, according to the Los Angeles Times, including staff cuts at Meta and Google.
In May, Microsoft announced nearly 100 layoffs in California, according to WARN notices. This comes amid the company's broader plan to trim its workforce by approximately 3 percent, affecting roughly 6,000 employees. The layoffs announced in May are expected to take effect in July.
What People Are Saying
A spokesperson for Microsoft, in a statement given to CNBC: "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace."
Clair Brown, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley, told Newsweek that California's labor market for recent college graduates was weakening "for a variety of reasons," including the effects of reduced imports from Asia, as well as "the increasing use of AI by employers especially in coding, in marketing, in draft analysis of data, and even routine tasks such as customer inquiries."
"The chaos presented by changing economic policies with tariffs is also causing employers to replace job vacancies slowly or not at all," she said, adding: "Over time, I worry that the labor market for early stage professional workers, such as my UCB students, will face declining jobs opportunities as the use of AI becomes widespread."
Chegg CEO and President Nathan Schultz said on May 12: "We believe the trends impacting our business will worsen before they get better. We are taking steps to further align costs with our outlook, including an additional restructuring of our business."
What Happens Next
Despite this trend, the California labor market remains steady. According to the state's latest EDD report, California added 17,700 jobs in April, following 6,800 job losses in March.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Business News
37 minutes ago
- Time Business News
Why SEO Remains Essential in the Era of Multichannel Marketing
In today's digital landscape, businesses are engaging customers through a complex web of touchpoints—ranging from social media and email to paid ads and influencer campaigns. Yet, amidst this flurry of activity, search engine optimization (SEO) retains a uniquely critical role in anchoring and amplifying the effectiveness of all marketing channels. For organizations aiming to synchronize their multichannel strategies and achieve sustainable growth, working with a consultant like Locke Lee can make all the difference. Multichannel marketing—the practice of reaching customers across multiple platforms and mediums—has become the new normal. Brands connect with audiences via Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasts, newsletters, and more. According to a 2024 report by HubSpot, over 70% of businesses now use at least four marketing channels to reach their customers. While this opens doors to broader engagement and brand awareness, it also presents challenges: Fragmented user journeys: Customers may discover brands on social, research products via search, and finally purchase through an email link or a marketplace. Customers may discover brands on social, research products via search, and finally purchase through an email link or a marketplace. Content overload: With so much noise online, standing out becomes harder, and customer attention is increasingly fleeting. With so much noise online, standing out becomes harder, and customer attention is increasingly fleeting. Data silos: Tracking customer behavior across channels is complex, making it difficult to attribute results accurately or understand which touchpoints drive conversions. This is where SEO steps in—not just as another channel, but as the connective tissue that unifies and strengthens multichannel strategies. Despite the growth of social and paid media, organic search remains the primary way consumers find information, services, and products. Google alone processes over 8.5 billion searches per day globally (Internet Live Stats, 2025). SEO ensures that when potential customers actively seek solutions, your brand is positioned front and center. In a multichannel context, SEO acts as a persistent, always-on acquisition engine, capturing intent-driven traffic while other channels build awareness or engagement. Effective SEO requires a deep understanding of what your audience is searching for and the language they use. By aligning keyword research and content strategy with broader marketing themes, brands ensure consistency in messaging across all channels. For example, blog articles optimized for SEO can provide the foundation for social posts, email campaigns, and even video scripts—creating a cohesive narrative that resonates everywhere your audience encounters your brand. Great content is the linchpin of both SEO and multichannel marketing. Optimized landing pages, resource centers, and blog posts not only rank in search engines but can be repurposed for social shares, email newsletters, and digital ads. A study by Content Marketing Institute shows that organizations integrating SEO with content marketing achieve 60% higher conversion rates compared to those operating in silos. SEO tools provide a wealth of data on search trends, content performance, and audience intent. These insights can: Identify which topics resonate most, guiding content creation across platforms. Highlight gaps in the customer journey, inspiring new touchpoints or messaging. Reveal seasonal or regional shifts in demand, informing paid and organic strategies alike. Informed by robust SEO analytics, marketers can optimize their multichannel efforts for maximum synergy and ROI. With multiple channels publishing similar content, brands risk competing with themselves in search results. A strategic approach to keyword mapping and content differentiation is essential to ensure each asset serves a distinct purpose and audience. Landing pages from ad campaigns, microsites, and social links must be technically optimized for speed, mobile usability, and indexability. Technical SEO audits help maintain a seamless user experience regardless of entry point. Google's evolving focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) means that every digital touchpoint—be it a press mention, review, or social comment—can impact search rankings. A multichannel strategy should include reputation management, consistent branding, and authoritative content. SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns are most effective when aligned. SEO uncovers high-converting keywords that can inform ad copy and bidding strategies, while PPC data reveals which terms drive the best results, feeding back into organic content creation. Content that performs well organically in search often garners more engagement on social platforms, and vice versa. Moreover, social shares and mentions can indirectly influence SEO by increasing brand visibility and driving referral traffic. SEO-optimized blog posts and resources provide valuable content for email campaigns, keeping subscribers engaged and driving them back to the website. Collaborations with influencers and affiliates often result in high-quality backlinks and mentions, both of which are vital for SEO authority. Centralize Your Content Calendar: Plan topics and campaigns around SEO insights, ensuring every channel supports and amplifies core search themes. Maintain Consistent Messaging: Use SEO research to inform the language and tone across all platforms, reinforcing brand identity. Optimize Landing Pages for All Channels: Every campaign destination should be built with SEO best practices—fast, mobile-friendly, and keyword-optimized. Leverage Unified Analytics: Regularly review combined data from SEO, social, email, and paid channels to identify trends and optimize performance. Foster Cross-Department Collaboration: Encourage SEO, content, social, and paid media teams to share insights, brainstorm campaigns, and solve challenges together. As the customer journey becomes more fragmented and nonlinear, SEO's ability to connect disparate digital efforts and capture high-intent traffic is more crucial than ever. Brands that treat SEO as the backbone of their multichannel marketing will enjoy greater visibility, credibility, and sustainable growth. For businesses seeking to thrive in this environment, partnering with experienced professionals like Locke Lee—who combines technical expertise with a holistic understanding of digital ecosystems—can be transformative. Author Bio: Locke Lee is a seasoned SEO strategist and digital marketing consultant with over seven years of experience helping brands harmonize their multichannel efforts for maximum impact. His approach combines technical mastery with actionable insights, empowering organizations to achieve first-page rankings and long-term growth in a dynamic online world. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's teen prodigy Kairan Quazi is ditching SpaceX for billionaire Ken Griffin's Citadel Securities
At just 16 years old, Kairan Quazi has already gained accolades most engineers spend decades accumulating: graduated college, helped design software for SpaceX Starlink satellites, and turned down officers from Silicon Valley's buzzy AI labs. Now, the prodigy is taking his next leap—not in Silicon Valley, but on Wall Street, where he's joining Citadel Securities, a liquidity provider, as a quant developer. A defiant attitude Quazi's path has been unconventional from the start. At 9, he left third grade for community college, went on to intern at Intel Labs at 10, and transferred to Santa Clara University at 11, eventually becoming the youngest graduate in its 172-year history. In 2023, he made headlines when Elon Musk's SpaceX hired him at just 14 years old, a 'rare company,' Quazi said at the time, that didn't use his age as an 'arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.' The same year, he sparred with Microsoft-owned LinkedIn after it locked him out of the platform for being under 16, blasting the decision as 'illogical, primitive nonsense.' In fact, Quazi has never been shy about critiquing the traditional system that held him back. Once LinkedIn allowed him back on to their platform, Quazi posted a comment slamming the conventional school system. The 16-year-old argued 'tests are not used to measure mastery, but the ability to regurgitate,' and that the modern 'school factory' rewards fear and prestige-chasing over learning. 'Age, privilege, and unconscious (sometimes even conscious) biases are used to gatekeep opportunities,' he wrote, adding that philosophers like Seneca the Younger and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius might have seen today's education system as dangerous. Two years later, Quazi is channeling that same defiance into a different arena. He turned down offers from top AI startups and tech firms to join Citadel Securities this week in New York, citing the firm's culture of meritocracy and instant feedback. 'Quant finance offers a pretty rare combination: the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace,' he told Business Insider. At Citadel Securities he said, he'll be able to see the results of his work in 'days, not months or years.' A win-win Citadel Securities — the sister company to the well-known Citadel — for its part, has every reason to trumpet the win. The firm, which handles roughly 35% of U.S. retail stock trades and generated nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2024, is locked in a talent war with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. Recruiting a prodigy who was once deemed too young for LinkedIn—but now works at the intersection of engineering and quantitative problem-solving—is a symbolic coup for Ken Griffin's trading powerhouse. For Quazi, the move also closes a personal loop. His mother worked in mergers and acquisitions as an investment banker, giving him early exposure to finance. And on campus, he saw how coveted quant jobs had become for math and computer-science students. 'It's one of the most prestigious industries you could go into as a computer scientist or mathematician,' he told Business Insider. Now, he's living that reality in New York City. Quazi has moved into an apartment just a 10-minute walk from Citadel Securities' Park Avenue office. 'New York has a very special place in my heart,' he said, noting that his mom grew up in Astoria, Queens. Unlike his time at SpaceX, where his mother had to drive him to work in Redmond, Washington, Quazi's commute is now his own: first on foot, and soon, by subway. 'I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment,' he said. 'Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me.' Jackie Scharnick, Citadel's communications director, said Quazi would pass on an interview with Fortune so he could 'focus on his second day of work.' This story was originally featured on Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Trump expands 50% steel and aluminum tariffs to include 407 additional product types
The Trump administration has quietly expanded its 50% steel and aluminum tariffs to include more than 400 additional product categories, vastly increasing the reach and impact of this arm of its trade agenda. The new tariffs, which took effect Monday, expand the scope of the levies that President Donald Trump previously announced on the valuable commodities. The tariff list now covers products like fire extinguishers, machinery, construction materials and specialty chemicals that either contain, or are contained in, aluminum or steel. 'Auto parts, chemicals, plastics, furniture components—basically, if it's shiny, metallic, or remotely related to steel or aluminum, it's probably on the list,' Brian Baldwin, vice president of customs at Kuehne + Nagel International AG wrote on LinkedIn of the expanded list. 'This isn't just another tariff—it's a strategic shift in how steel and aluminum derivatives are regulated,' he continued. The levies extend to 407 new product categories, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday. 'Today's action expands the reach of the steel and aluminum tariffs and shuts down avenues for circumvention — supporting the continued revitalization of the American steel and aluminum industries,' Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler said in a statement. The release from the agency links out to a list that identifies the newly included product types only by the specific customs codes that apply to them, not by what the products are actually called. For example, Commerce identifies the product category of fire extinguishers only as '8424.10.0000,' a 10-digit code buried among hundreds of other 10-digit codes. This format makes it very difficult for the public to get a full picture of all the products that are impacted by Monday's expanded tariffs. But experts say the impact will be enormous. 'By my count, the steel and aluminum tariffs now affect at least $320 billion of imports based on 2024′s general customs value of imports,' Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, wrote on LinkedIn. 'This will add more inflationary cost-push pressures to already climbing prices that domestic producers are charging as picked up by July's PPI data, ″ he continued. President Donald Trump has repeatedly relied on sector-specific tariffs to enact his sweeping trade agenda. In June, Trump announced that he was doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50% for most countries, injecting widespread uncertainty among businesses and U.S. trading partners reliant on the valuable commodities. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on whether the new metal tariffs stack on top of the country-specific tariffs that Trump has also announced.
