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Tech company layoffs in Europe in 2023

2023’s latest tech company layoffs in Europe, listed by Sifted

By Sifted reporters

Image by DCStudio on Freepik

Tech company layoffs hit European tech hard last year — a global trend that left more than 150k tech workers without a job, according to layoffs tracker layoffs.fyi.

Layoffs at tech companies came as founders and VCs shifted focus from growth at all costs and profitability became the word of the day. 

2023 is shaping up to be no different.

Below we list the layoffs that we know of so far in 2023 — and hope it helps any managers who are hiring to find new talent. Not all of the companies gave absolute numbers of employees laid off, so we have estimated based on the most recent LinkedIn headcount for the company. The estimated numbers are marked with an asterisk.

There is an Airtable with all the numbers at the bottom of this article.

January 2023

  • X Shore — Swedish electric boat manufacturer X Shore laid off 10% of its employees in order to reach profitability quicker than originally planned. It raised a €50m late VC round in April 2022.
  • Glovo — The Barcelona-based grocery delivery company laid off 6% of staff, amounting to 250 employees, after receiving a fine from the Spanish government for allegedly violating employment laws.
  • Aiven — The cloud data startup is cutting 20% of jobs, which will affect all its global teams. Confirmed to Sifted by the VP of human resources.
  • Brainly — The Polish edtech laid off 23 employees at the start of January, across its teams in Poland, Spain and the US. That’s after it cut almost all of its team in India at the end of 2022 — 25 people in total.
  • Britishvolt — Failed UK gigafactory startup Britishvolt filed for administration on January 17, making 206 of its 232 staff t redundant with immediate effect, a spokesperson for EY — the auditor for the administration — told Sifted.
  • Clue — The chief of staff at the period tracking app announced in a LinkedIn post the company had laid off 25% of its team. The cuts affect 25 of the startup’s 100 staff.
  • Paddle — The payments startup cut 8% of jobs in early January. The layoffs were confirmed in a LinkedIn post by founder and CEO Christian Owens.
  • Shares — Ben Chelma, the CEO and cofounder of the social investment platform, confirmed to Sifted that it was reducing its headcount by 10% globally, across all departments. He reiterated this doesn’t change the company’s focus on expansion, which will start with the EU.
  • TIER — the German mobility startup confirmed to Sifted that it was cutting a total of 100 jobs, including approximately 70 roles from TIER and 11 from nextbike — the bike sharing company TIER acquired in 2021. Nineteen roles are also being cut from Spin — the former Ford-owned shared electric bike and scooter operate TIER acquired in 2022.

Tech company layoffs in 2023

This article was last updated on February 1 2023. 

The main image for this article was used under Freepik’s free licence.