The Chickens are Going Elsewhere to Roost

Intuit HQ in Mountain View (Mercury photo)

Despite economic strength in the rest of the country Bay Area tech layoffs continue. IBM, Cisco, and Advantest announced that a combined 1,000 jobs will be "permanently" eliminated by the end of November.

Added to the 384 positions extinguished at Intuit's Mountain View HQ in July, over 45,000 jobs have been lost in the Bay Area since 2022.

None of the aforementioned companies are in trouble. In fact, all their stocks are trading near the high for the year.

Udemy looks like it was a nice place to work (Chron)

San Francisco-based Udemy is more explicit about the reasons it is cutting Bay Area jobs: [bold added]

Udemy, the world’s largest online learning marketplace, announced plans to lay off 280 employees, representing approximately 20% of its global workforce. The company said it intends to rehire about half of these positions in locations with lower operational costs.

The restructuring is expected to incur costs ranging from $16 million to $19 million, mainly in severance payments, and will span from the third fiscal quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025. Udemy aims to complete the restructuring by March 31.

Udemy is a relatively small company with 1,443 employees at the end of 2023. Earlier this week we posted about how California's inhospitable business environment (taxes, regulatory inefficiencies, anti-business Progressive attitudes) caused Elon Musk to move his multi-billion dollar enterprises to Texas.

California's heavy hand applies to small businesses as well.