Laid-off techies face 'sense of impending doom' with job cuts at highest since dot-com crash

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 200tech 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