Layoffs hit thousands of Seattle-area Amazon, Microsoft employees

REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft announced Wednesday it would lay off 10,000 workers, on the same day more Amazon workers received notice that their jobs would be cut.

Microsoft said the layoffs represent about 5% of its global workforce.

In a filing with the state, the company disclosed plans to lay off 878 workers locally.

Microsoft has about 50,000 employees in Washington.

Also on Wednesday, Amazon filed notice that it will lay off 2,300 workers in Washington, 448 of them in Bellevue and 1,852 in Seattle.

Amazon previously announced it would lay off about 18,000 workers worldwide.

Software engineer Isaac Del Rosario was recently laid off from another tech company in Seattle.

“Surprisingly, I’ve been able to get interviews from smaller startups and things like that, so it’s not that opportunities are fully closed, which is great,” Del Rosario said.

University of Washington economist Jacob Vigdor predicts the layoffs will be a good opportunity for smaller companies to hire workers.

Vigdor said the tech layoffs are far different from the Boeing Bust of the 1970s.

“These layoffs are smaller in number, not all of them are going to be in the Seattle area, and we’re just a bigger, more diversified economy now,” Vigdor said.

Vigdor also noted that the layoffs at tech companies come after a hiring boom in the pandemic.

“It sounds like a lot, but you’re still going to see these companies having bigger workforces than they had just two years ago,” he said.

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