Are tech layoffs the canary in the US jobs market?

The tech industry is laying off workers at an alarming pace as it braces for a potential recession, raising fears that widespread job losses could spill into the broader U.S. economy.

Despite still-solid job growth and high wages in many industries, Big Tech is battening down the hatches amid a darkening economic outlook for the industry. 

Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, became the latest technology company to reduce its workforce, announcing on Friday that it plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce. It amounts to one of the company's biggest-ever rounds of layoffs and adds to the tens of thousands of job cuts already announced by Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce and Facebook parent company Meta.

Technology firms have already slashed more than 190,000 jobs since the beginning of 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts in the industry. Experts say the job losses are likely indicative of future layoffs across a spectrum of industries within the labor market.