Apple is the only tech giant that still hasn’t announced layoffs — these charts may explain why
An employee cleans a window at Apple Inc.’s new Canton Road store in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong, China.
Xaume Olleros | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Many of the biggest technology companies are laying off staff as fears of a recession rises. But the job cuts come after a few years of rapid expansion.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it will eliminate 10,000 employees, reducing its workforce by 5%, and Amazon began conducting layoffs that will eventually slash 18,000 jobs.
Microsoft and Amazon are joining tech industry peers including Alphabet and Meta which have also cut staff in recent months.
While each company is slightly different, most companies going through layoffs are blaming macroeconomic conditions and the possibility of a future recession as the reason for their belt-tightening.
But an underappreciated factor is how rapidly tech companies ramped up hiring over the last two years.
In 2020, widespread Covid lockdowns made internet applications more important to people, supercharging business for many tech companies. As sales and profit continued to rise in 2021, they continued to add huge numbers of employees in the hopes that the success they were seeing would become a new baseline. It didn’t work out that way. Growth is slowing, and companies are now having to readjust.
Apple is a major exception: It did not appreciably increase its rate of hiring over the last two years, and also has not announced any layoffs.
A review of SEC filings shows how rapidly the other biggest tech companies grew during the pandemic.
Microsoft had 221,000 full time employees at the end of June 2022, the most recent official figure that’s available. That was a 40,000 employee jump from the same time in 2021, a 22% percent increase in staff. The year before that, Microsoft added 18,000 employees, an 11% increase.
In a note about Microsoft layoffs, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said that the tech sector had to spend money during the pandemic to keep up with elevated demand.
“Redmond needed to aggressively hire along with the rest of the tech sector and spend money like 1980’s Rock Stars to keep pace with eye-popping demand,” Ives wrote in a Wednesday note.
Amazon is more complicated than Microsoft because it has a huge hourly workforce for its warehouses, as well as the corporate office employees seen in most tech companies.
Still, Amazon grew voraciously in 2021, adding 310,000 jobs. That followed an even bigger expansion in 2020, when it grew over 38% and added half a million employees.
Overall, Amazon reported 1.6 million employees as of the end of December 2021, of which about 300,000 have corporate jobs.
An Amazon executive said that its Covid-era expansion was one reason for cutbacks on Wednesday in a memo to employees.
“During Covid, our first priority was scaling to meet the needs of our customers while ensuring the safety of our employees. I’m incredibly proud of this team’s work during this period,” Amazon retail chief Doug Harrington said in a memo obtained by CNBC. “Although other companies might have balked at the short-term economics, we prioritized investing for customers and employees during these unprecedented times.”
Meta (formerly Facebook) has increased headcount by thousands of employees each year since going public in 2012, according to SEC filings.
In 2020, Meta added over 13,000 employees, a 30% increase, and the biggest year of hiring in the company’s history. In 2021, it added another 13,000 workers. By total worker numbers, it was the two biggest years of expansion in Facebook’s short history.
Alphabet, formerly Google, has not cut as many positions as other large-cap companies, but in recent weeks, it has cut 240 positions at Verily, its health sciences division, and laid off 40 at Intrinsic, a robotics division.
But while Alphabet’s recent cuts are much smaller than some other companies, its growth was similarly massive.
In 202, Alphabet added over 21,000 employees, or a 15% increase during the year to a total of 156,500 workers. In 2020, it added over 16,000 employees, or a nearly 14% increase.
That growth predates the pandemic, however, as Alphabet has increased headcount at least 10% every year since 2013, and added 20% new employees in 2018 and 2019 as well.
Apple grew much more slowly during the pandemic. In fact, Apple’s hiring over the past few years has followed the same general trend since 2016.
As of September 2022, Apple had 164,000 employees, which includes both corporate employees as well as retail staff for its stores. But that was only a rise of 6.5% from the same period in 2021, amounting to real growth of 10,000 employees. Apple also hired judiciously in 2020, adding less than 7,000 employees in the year before September 2021.
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng speaks to reporters at the electric carmaker’s stand at the IAA auto show in Munich, Germany on September 8, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Germany this week played host to one of the world’s biggest auto shows — but in the heartland of Europe’s auto industry, it was buzzy Chinese electric car companies looking to outshine some of the region’s biggest brands on their home turf.
The IAA Mobility conference in Munich was packed full of companies with huge stands showing off their latest cars and technology. Among some of the biggest displays were those from Chinese electric car companies, underscoring their ambitions to expand beyond China.
Europe has become a focal point for the Asian firms. It’s a market where the traditional automakers are seen to be lagging in the development of electric vehicles, even as they ramp up releases of new cars. At the same time, Tesla, which was for so long seen as the electric vehicle market leader, has seen sales decline in the region.
Despite Chinese EV makers facing tariffs from the European Union, players from the world’s second-largest economy have responded to the ramping up of competition by setting aggressive sales and expansion targets.
“The current growth of Xpeng globally is faster than we have expected,” He Xiaopeng, the CEO of Xpeng told CNBC in an interview this week.
Aggressive expansion plans
Chinese carmakers who spoke to CNBC at the IAA show signaled their ambitious expansion plans.
Xpeng’s He said in an interview that the company is looking to launch its mass-market Mona series in Europe next year. In China, Xpeng’s Mona cars start at the equivalent of just under $17,000. Bringing this to Europe would add some serious price competition.
Meanwhile, Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) is targeting rapid growth of its sales in Europe. Wei Haigang, president of GAC International, told CNBC that the company aims to sell around 3,000 cars in Europe this year and at least 50,000 units by 2027. GAC also announced plans to bring two EVs — the Aion V and Aion UT — to Europe. Leapmotor was also in attendance with their own stand.
There are signs that Chinese players have made early in roads into Europe. The market share of Chinese car brands in Europe nearly doubled in the first half of the year versus the same period in 2024, though it still remains low at just over 5%, according to Jato Dynamics.
“The significant presence of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers at the IAA Mobility, signals their growing ambitions and confidence in the European market,” Murtuza Ali, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
Tech and gadgets in focus
Many of the Chinese car firms have positioned themselves as technology companies, much like Tesla, and their cars highlight that.
Many of the electric vehicles have big screens equipped with flashy interfaces and voice assistants. And in a bid to lure buyers, some companies have included additional gadgets.
For example, GAC’s Aion V sported a refrigerator as well as a massage function as part of the seating.
The Aion V is one of the cars GAC is launching in Europe as it looks to expand its presence in the region. The Aion V is on display at the company’s stand at the IAA Mobility auto show in Munich, Germany on September 9, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
This is one way that the Chinese players sought to differentiate themselves from legacy brands.
“The chances of success for Chinese automakers are strong, especially as they have an edge in terms of affordability, battery technology, and production scale,” Counterpoint’s Ali said.
Europe’s carmakers push back
Legacy carmakers sought to flex their own muscles at the IAA with Volskwagen, BMW and Mercedes having among the biggest stands at the show. Mercedes in particular had advertising displayed all across the front entrance of the event.
BMW, like the Chinese players, had a big focus on technology by talking up its so-called “superbrain architecture,” which replaces hardware with a centralized computer system. BMW, which introduced the iX3 at the event, and chipmaker Qualcomm also announced assisted driving software that the two companies co-developed.
Volkswagen and French auto firm Renault also showed off some new electric cars.
Regardless of the product blitz, there are still concerns that European companies are not moving fast enough. BMW’s new iX3 is based on the electric vehicle platform it first debuted two years ago. Meanwhile, Chinese EV makers have been quick in bringing out and launching newer models.
“A commitment to legacy structures and incrementalism has slowed its ability to build and leverage a robust EV ecosystem, leaving it behind fast moving rivals,” Tammy Madsen, professor of management at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, said of BMW.
While European autos have a strong brand history and their CEOs acknowledged and welcomed the competition this week in interviews with CNBC, the Chinese are not letting up.
“Europe’s automakers still hold significant brand value and legacy. The challenge for them lies in achieving production at scale and adopting new technologies faster,” Counterpoint’s Ali said.
“The Chinese surely are not waiting for anyone to catch-up and are making significant gains.”
Marc Benioff is keeping an eye on Palantir.
The co-founder and CEO of sales and customer service management software company Salesforce is well aware that investors are betting big on Palantir, which offers data management software to businesses and government agencies.
“Oh my gosh. I am so inspired by that company,” Benioff told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in a Tuesday interview at Goldman Sachs‘ Communacopia+Technology conference in San Francisco. “I mean, not just because they have 100 times, you know, multiple on their revenue, which I would love to have that too. Maybe it’ll have 1000 times on their revenue soon.”
Salesforce, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, remains 10 times larger than Palantir by revenue, with over $10 billion in revenue during the latest quarter. But Palantir is growing 48%, compared with 10% for Salesforce.
Benioff added that Palantir’s prices are “the most expensive enterprise software I’ve ever seen.”
“Maybe I’m not charging enough,” he said.
It wasn’t Benioff’s first time talking about Palantir. Last week, Benioff referenced Palantir’s “extraordinary” prices in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, saying Salesforce offers a “very competitive product at a much lower cost.”
The next day, TBPN podcast hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays asked for a response from Alex Karp, Palantir’s co-founder and CEO.
“We are very focused on value creation, and we ask to be modestly compensated for that value,” Karp said.
The companies sometimes compete for government deals, and Benioff touted a recent win over Palantir for a U.S. Army contract.
Palantir started in 2003, four years after Salesforce. But while Salesforce went public in 2004, Palantir arrived on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.
Palantir’s market capitalization stands at $406 billion, while Salesforce is worth $231 billion. And as one of the most frequently traded stocks on Robinhood, Palantir is popular with retail investors.
Salesforce shares are down 27% this year, the worst performance in large-cap tech.
Salesforce and Palantir year to date stock chart.
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