Dive Brief:

• More than half of tech professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area say they're concerned or very concerned about layoffs or furloughs impacting their job security in the coming six months, according to a report from Hired. The company surveyed 2,300 global tech workers who were on its platform.
• The 53% of concerned Bay Area technologists is an increase from the 42% of New York tech workers who express similar concerns. In the United Kingdom, just over one-third of respondents said they are worried about layoffs or furloughs.
• Hired cites San Francisco's reliance on venture capital as a potential reason for the heightened concern. In the context of the pandemic, the number of early-stage deals is projected to contract 25%-30%, according to Pitchbook.

Dive Insight:

Tech professionals across the country are monitoring the economic crunch of the pandemic. For San Francisco tech workers, the concern hits close to home.

According to tech startup layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi, 26,741 people have lost their jobs at San Francisco-based companies since March 11. Mass layoff rounds impacted companies including Uber, which cut 6,700 jobs globally. Airbnb, hit severely by global travel restrictions, laid off 25% of its employees, or around 1,900 workers.

Under 1,000 Microsoft employees were laid off as the company closed out its fiscal year, reports Business Insider. The timing, however, is common practice for Microsoft. In May, IBM executed a round of layoffs that affected several thousand employees, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

In the tracker, the next city most affected by the pandemic in terms of tech layoffs is New York, where 4,752 tech startup workers were laid off.

As stay-at-home orders were issued, two-thirds of Bay Area professionals considered relocating if given the chance to work from home as much as they'd like, data from Hired shows. After the crisis ends, 14% of Bay Area workers anticipate never returning to the office.

San Francisco's reliance on venture capital is impacting the workforce, as financial uncertainty and falling revenue forecasts push investors to "double down on higher-performing portfolio companies and quickly cut their losses on troubled startups," according to a Pitchbook report.

The influx of corporate venture capital also fell in the context of the pandemic. Global corporate backers contracted by nearly 30% in Q2 2020, a CB Insights analysis found.