Last year was, by all accounts, a bloodbath for the tech industry, with more than 260,000 jobs vanishing — the worst 12 months for Silicon Valley since the dot-com crash of the early 2000s.

Executives justified the mass layoffs by citing a pandemic hiring binge, high inflation and weak consumer demand.

Now in 2024, tech company workforces have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, inflation is half of what it was this time last year and consumer confidence is rebounding.

Yet, in the first four weeks of this year, nearly 100 tech companies, including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, TikTok and Salesforce have collectively let go of about 25,000 employees, according to layoffs.fyi, which tracks the technology sector.

All of the major tech companies conducting another wave of layoffs this year are sitting atop mountains of cash and are wildly profitable, so the job-shedding is far from a matter of necessity or survival.

Then what is driving it?

"There is a herding effect in tech," said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. "The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop."

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