Bay Area tech layoffs soar to brutal heights with huge VMware job cuts

PALO ALTO, California — Tech industry job cuts in the Bay Area have reached two new grim milestones with the disclosure that the Broadcom purchase of VMware will spawn well over 1,000 more Silicon Valley layoffs, documents show.

With the latest revelations of upcoming layoffs, the tech industry has now disclosed plans to chop twice as many Bay Area jobs in 2023 than they reported for 2022, according to this news organization’s review of hundreds of official filings with the state labor agency.

Plus, Bay Area layoffs in the tech industry have now rocketed past the 31,000 mark for a period stretching from January 2022 to the present. Only a few days ago, the total layoffs for the 23 months was roughly 30,000.

VMware has revealed its intentions to chop 1,267 jobs in Palo Alto on the heels of the company’s acquisition by Broadcom, WARN notices on file with the state Employment Development Department show.

Tech companies so far in 2023 have disclosed plans to slash about 20,900 jobs in the Bay Area. That’s twice as many as the 10,400 job cuts they announced affecting their employees in the nine-county region in 2023.

All told, since the start of 2022 and over the first 11 months of 2023, tech companies have filed their intentions to eliminate 31,300 jobs in the Bay Area, the WARN notices show.

VMware, in a letter sent to the EDD on Nov. 27, has decided to cut jobs in Palo Alto on a “permanent” basis, Broadcom vice president of human resources Jill Turner wrote the WARN notice.

Broadcom bought VMware in a $69 billion tech deal completed on Nov. 22, a few days before Thanksgiving.