Tech layoffs are a warning sign of what’s ahead

Technology companies are on a firing spree: Meta, Twitter, Redfin, Zillow, Lyft, Stripe and GoFundMe have all announced massive layoffs in recent days. Amazon (whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Post) is expected to ax about 10,000 corporate staff soon. What’s really going on here is a big reset for tech and the broader economy. After nearly two decades of rapid growth, skyrocketing stock prices and domination of so many aspects of people’s lives, tech is facing a business reckoning.

It’s not particularly surprising how this happened. Ultralow interest rates in the 2010s made investors hungry to throw money at fast-growing companies, and tech was one of the hottest options. Then the pandemic created even more demand for online buying, socializing and working as people spent more time at home. Investors poured in more money. Stocks soared higher. Tech could not hire fast enough and even surpassed pre-pandemic employment earlier this year. Executives talked about a lasting revolution in how people work, play and buy. They envisioned a future with even more time spent online. But then the easy money stopped. The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates aggressively. Tech stocks have shed huge amounts of their value this year. Big bets on everything from the “metaverse” of Meta (down 65 percent) to the home-flipping program of Redfin (down 87 percent) went from being viewed as dreamy to too risky. Investors didn’t want to wait years to see if these new ideas succeeded. They want profits now and business plans that can sustain downturns.