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The Google office in New York on February 2, 2023.

Ed Jones | Afp | Getty Images

Allison Croisant, a data scientist with about a decade of experience in technology, was laid off by PayPal earlier this year, joining the masses of unemployed across her industry. Croisant has one word to describe the process of looking for a job right now: “Insane.”

“Everybody else is also getting laid off,” said Croisant, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where she worked remotely for PayPal.

Her sentiment is reflected in the numbers. Since the start of the year, more than 50,000 workers have been laid off from over 200 tech companies, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi. It’s a continuation of the predominant theme of 2023, when more than 260,000 workers across nearly 1,200 tech companies lost their jobs.

Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have all taken part in the downsizing this year, along with eBay, Unity Software, SAP and Cisco. Wall Street has largely cheered on the cost-cutting, sending many tech stocks to record highs on optimism that spending discipline coupled with efficiency gains from artificial intelligence will lead to rising profits. PayPal announced in January that it was eliminating 9% of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs.

For the tens of thousands of people in Croisant’s position, the path toward reemployment is daunting. All told, 2023 was the second-biggest year of cuts on record in the technology sector, behind only the dot-com crash in 2001, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Not since the spectacular flameouts of Pets.com, eToys and Webvan have so many tech workers lost their jobs in such a short period of time.

Last month’s job cut count was the highest of any February since 2009, when the financial crisis forced companies into cash preservation mode.

CNBC spoke to a dozen people who have been laid off from tech jobs in the past year or so about their experiences navigating the labor market. Some spoke on the condition that CNBC not use their names or write about the details of their situation. Taken together, they paint a picture of an increasingly competitive market with job listings that include exacting requirements for qualification and come with lower pay than their prior gigs.

It’s a particularly confounding situation for software developers and data scientists, who just a couple of years ago had some of the most marketable and highly valued skills on the planet, and are now considering whether they need to exit the industry to find employment.

“The market isn’t what it once was,” Roger Lee, creator of Layoffs.fyi, said in an email. “To secure a new position, many salespeople and recruiters are leaving tech entirely. Even engineers are compromising — accepting roles with less stability, a tougher work environment, or lower pay and benefits.”

Recent tech layoffs isn't a moment where AI is replacing engineers: Big Technology's Alex Kantrowitz

Lee said tech salaries have “largely stagnated” in the last two years, citing data from Comprehensive.io, a compensation tracker he recently helped launch.

Croisant’s job search involved applying for some positions that had racked up hundreds of applicants. She could see that data using LinkedIn’s Talent Insights platform, which shows how many people are vying for an open role.

Additionally, some listings required applicants to have advanced degrees or professional experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence, a new development in Croisant’s experience on the job market.

During five weeks of job hunting, Croisant said she applied to 48 openings and landed two interviews. She finally opted to accept a lower-level data analyst role and a roughly $3,000 reduction in her base pay to take a contract role starting next month at a financial technology company.

“This was an absolutely terrifying experience for me, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever truly feel secure in a job again,” Croisant said. “But I’m still one of the lucky ones in the end. I have friends who’ve been looking for months and still haven’t found anything.”

‘It’s humbling’

Krysten Powers was laid off in January from travel tech startup Flyr after two years in marketing at the company. She said navigating the current labor market is like a full-time job, “sometimes even harder.”

“You’re putting out resumes and getting almost immediate rejections,” said Powers, who’s worked in marketing for a decade. “It does take a toll on your confidence and you get this sort of imposter syndrome.”

Powers lives with her husband and two kids in the small town of Natchez, Mississippi. A month before she lost her job, her family bought a new house. Powers said moving isn’t an option, and she’s only considering remote roles in marketing. However, she is willing to accept a pay cut.

“It’s humbling for sure,” she said.

Google Headquarters is seen in Mountain View, California, United States on May 15, 2023.

Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The same dynamics are playing out across the industry, even for former employees of Google, which was long considered the home of Silicon Valley’s elite talent.

Christopher Fong, who worked at Google from 2006 to 2015, is the founder of a group called Xoogler.co, which seeks to provide help for people laid off from the internet company. The 9-year-old organization, consisting of thousands of Google alumni and current staffers, offers peer support and hundreds of in-person events.

In January, Google eliminated several hundred positions across its hardware, central engineering and Google Assistant teams. A year earlier, the company cut 12,000 jobs, or roughly 6% of its full-time workforce. 

Fong said the “biggest challenge” today for many ex-Google employees is finding a job that maintains their previous level of pay.

Michael Kascsak, who was laid off by Google in March of last year, took a different approach to his job search.

Kascsak said he welcomed a pay cut to start as head of talent acquisition for veterinary business CityVet in January after applying for hundreds of jobs. He acknowledged that his previous employer had set exceptionally high compensation expectations. 

“I went into this knowing I had been fortunate to work at a company that paid at the top percentile and I’m a realist. I prepared myself to be flexible,” said Kascsak, who lives in Austin, Texas, and previously worked in talent sourcing for Google. “I’m fine with the pay now because I’m in the environment I want to be in with great people.”

Tech is a notable outlier in a labor market that’s been largely steady over the past two years. Nationwide, the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% in February from 3.7% each of the prior three months. It’s been mostly in that range since early 2022. The U.S. economy added 275,000 jobs in February, topping 200,000 for a third straight month.

Booming market for AI engineers

Sentiment indexes are mixed. Job review website Glassdoor’s Employee Confidence Index, which gauges how employees feel about their employer’s six-month business outlook, sank to its lowest level in February since its sentiment data first began in 2016. Among tech workers, discussions about layoffs on Glassdoor have more than quadrupled in the past two years, and were up 12% last month compared with a year earlier.

However, ZipRecruiter’s Job Seeker Confidence Index has been rising since mid-2023, and increased to its highest level in the fourth quarter since the second quarter of 2022.

Even within tech, there’s a vast divide in the current market. Lee of Layoffs.fyi said AI is driving a “return to rapid hiring and expansion,” even as layoffs continue elsewhere. Salaries for AI engineers rose 12% from the third to fourth quarter last year, and the average salary for a senior AI engineer nationally is more than $190,000, according to Comprehensive.io.

Amit Mittal was laid off from AI lending company Upstart

Amit Mittal

Amit Mittal has been on both sides of the employment market — previously as a hiring manager and now as a job seeker.

In November, Mittal was laid off from AI lending company Upstart, where he worked as a software engineering manager, often overseeing interviews. Mittal said he witnessed the hiring process become “a lot more demanding” as layoffs surged.

“There was a lot more pressure on us to basically raise the bar higher and higher,” he said. “Somebody with a four-year experience in the past would have had a pretty good chance at getting a good job. But now they’re competing against people who have six, seven, eight years of experience for the same position.” 

Mittal, who’s from India and has lived in the Chicago area since 2007, has lately been subject to a very different kind of pressure. Under his H-1B visa, Mittal had only 60 days from the official end of his employment to find a new job in the tech industry in order to stay in the country.

“If for four months, I have to pay my bills by driving an Uber or working at McDonald’s flipping burgers, that’s fine,” he said. “But that mechanism doesn’t exist for me.”

Mittal has now successfully petitioned to obtain a separate B-2 tourist visa, giving him an extra six months to find new employment. It wasn’t a cheap effort, though. He estimated he spent around $8,000 on legal and administrative costs tied to his submission.

All the while, Mittal said he’s applied for about 110 jobs to no avail. He attributed the dearth of success to employers’ reluctance or inability to sponsor visa holders.

“It seems like the possibilities are pretty slim right now, even though I see hundreds of postings every single day,” Mittal said.

Bill Vezey was laid off by eBay in January following a 13-year career as a software engineer at the online retailer. He said he’s learning the rules of the “new game,” and they’re much different than he remembers. 

“Attainability is not just a numbers game,” said Vezey, 64, who lives in Santa Cruz, California. “It is a combination of how well you brand yourself, about your access through networking to any given position — to the hidden job market.”

Vezey said he hopes to be rehired at his longtime employer and wants to remain in tech.

“I am kind of an incurable optimist, despite what 60-odd years of living have brought,” he said.

Like many of those who spoke to CNBC, Powers said she spends her days tailoring her resume for openings, scanning online job boards and applying for newly posted positions. She networks by contacting a recruiter or hiring manager connected to each role, though she said some recruiters have ghosted her as quickly as they’ve expressed interest.

She’s had a few interviews, and turned down one job offer. That position would’ve required her to go to an office while taking a more than 50% pay cut from her previous job. And she’d have to find child care.

“There’s a sense of impending doom,” Powers said. “There is a point where the money runs out and the options become really bleak.”

Still, Powers said she’s trying to stay optimistic, “because giving up is not going to get me a job.”

— CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

WATCH: Why widespread tech layoffs keep happening despite a strong economy

Why widespread tech layoffs keep happening despite a strong U.S. economy

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle 

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The S1 lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.

While the filing does not yet disclose the number of shares or a price range, sources told Fortune that Circle plans to move forward with a public filing in late April and is targeting a market debut as early as June.

JPMorgan Chase and Citi are reportedly serving as lead underwriters, and the company is seeking a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion, according to Fortune.

This marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior SPAC merger with Concord Acquisition Corp collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance — including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York City.

Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

Circle is best known as the issuer of USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation.

Circle is best known as the issuer of USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation. It makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.” 

The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is navigating renewed political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector is ramping up as the industry grows increasingly confident that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins.

Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they integrate more of them into crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin.

The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.

More recently, however, rhetoric around stablecoins’ ability to help preserve U.S. dollar dominance – by exporting dollar utility internationally and ensuring demand for U.S. government debt, which backs nearly all dollar-denominated stablecoins – has grown louder.

A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent crypto-native firms to list on a U.S. exchange — an important signal for both investors and regulators as digital assets become more entwined with the traditional financial system.

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Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

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Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.

Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.

Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.

“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.

A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company. 

In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.

But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.

That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable. 

During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.

But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.

With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.

WATCH: Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business

Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business

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Meta’s head of AI research announces departure

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Meta's head of AI research announces departure

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company. 

Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30. 

Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.

Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.

“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”

Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.

Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images

Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps. 

She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.

Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.

Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February

“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.” 

Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”

WATCH: Meta awaits antitrust fine from EU

Meta awaits antitrust fine from EU

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