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The list of major companies laying off staff this year, including Morgan Stanley, Wayfair, Starbucks, and Meta

BI Staff

Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 10:04 AM

18 min read

HPE is laying 5% of its workforce to cut costs.PAU BARRENA / AFP

Companies such as Meta, Microsoft, BlackRock, and Chevron are conducting layoffs.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping some workforces.

See the list of companies letting workers go in 2025.

Layoffs and other workforce reductions are continuing in 2025, following two years of significant job cuts across tech, media, finance, manufacturing, retail, and energy. While the reasons for slimming staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid a backdrop of technological change. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, some 41% of companies worldwide said they expected to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence.

Companies such as CNN, Dropbox, and IBM have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are meanwhile expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF. Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far.

Adidas plans to cut up to 500 jobs in Germany.

Despite a strong year, Adidas is planning job cuts.Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Adidas said in January that it would reduce the size of its workforce at its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, impacting up to 500 jobs, CNBC reported. If fully executed, it amounts to a reduction of nearly 9% at the company headquarters, which employs about 5,800 employees, according to the Adidas website. The news came shortly after the company announced it had outperformed its profit expectations at the end of 2024, touting “better-than-expected” results in the fourth quarter.

“Strong growth across all regions and divisions proves the good job our teams are doing across regions and functions,” CEO Bjørn Gulden said in a press release. “So although we are not yet where we want to be long term, I am very happy with this development which was much better than we had expected.”

In a statement to BI, an Adidas spokesperson said the company had grown “too complex because of our current operating model.”

“To set adidas up for long-term success,” the spokesperson said, “we are now starting to look at how we align our operating model with the reality of how we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and number of roles based at our HQ in Herzogenaurach.” The company said it is not a cost-cutting measure and that it could not confirm concrete numbers.

Ally is cutting less than 5% of workers.

Ally is laying off about 500 employees.Ally Bank/Facebook

The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI. “As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business,” the spokesperson said.

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The spokesperson also said the company was offering severance, out-placement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally. Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.

BlackRock is cutting 1% of its workforce.

BlackRock was recently reported to be planning layoffs.Eric Thayer/Reuters

BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, Bloomberg reported in January. The reductions were more than offset by some 3,750 workers who were added last year and another 2,000 expected to be added in 2025. BlackRock’s president, Rob Kapito, and its chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, said the cuts would help realign the firm’s resources with its strategy, Bloomberg reported.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin will lay off about 10% of its workforce.Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 10% of its workforce, a move that could affect more than 1,000 employees. In a memo sent to staff in February and obtained by Business Insider, David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, said the company’s priority going forward was “to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness and efficiency for our customers.” Limp specifically identified roles in engineering, research and development, and management as targets.

“We