Silicon Valley, home of so many technological and workplace innovations, is rolling out another one: the unnecessary layoff.

After shedding more than 260,000 jobs in 2023, the greatest carnage since the dot.com meltdown more than two decades ago, major tech companies show little sign of letting up in 2024 despite being mostly profitable, in some cases handsomely so. In their words, tech companies are letting people go to further the continuing process of aligning their structure to their key priorities, or “transformation” or becoming “future ready”. Behind these generalities, however, some tech companies are using what has hitherto been an extreme measure in order to engineer a short-term bump in market sentiment.