Startup Layoffs Remained Stubbornly High Through Q1 2024

Startup Layoffs Remained Stubbornly High Through Q1 2024

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

April 22, 2024

Hopes for a layoff decline in Q1 2024 were not realized—the quarterly figure remained above 20,000 for the 8th straight quarter, though the underlying trend...

LinkedIn: Startup Layoffs Remained Stubbornly High Through Q1 2024

When will these layoffs end?

Was a little hopeful we'd see layoffs continue to trend downward in Q1, but they instead remained stubbornly high.

Outside of the peak moment of worry in early 2020 due to the pandemic, we hadn't ever seen a quarter with over 20,000 laid off employees from US Carta companies.

Now we've been over 20K for 8 straight quarters.

A little of this is due to underlying data set changes (since more companies join Carta everyday - up over 44,000 now) but the vast majority of the new joiners are pre-seed companies who employ very few folks, so the overall impact on these figures is minimal.

Sad to see. Sure, some people will say "this is healthy" or "this is necessary" which can both be true but actually it sucks.

This is also the context for startup job-seekers out there. The market for new roles is deeply impacted by these cuts, both because of the great talent now looking for a job and the overall headcount pressure evidenced by the layoffs themselves.

Hoping for a better Q2 🙏

#cartadata #layoffs #startups ____________________

Our State of Pre-Seed, Q1 2024 Report goes live tomorrow. Sign up at the link in graphic to get it in your inbox (30+ charts on SAFEs, Convertible Notes, and all things fundraising for nascent startups).

Peter Walker
Author: Peter Walker
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

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