Pope Francis joined other Christian leaders and the U.N. on Saturday in urging the protection and advancement of women in South Sudan, where rape has been a weapon of war, child brides are common and most girls do not reach secondary education.

The rights of girls and women was a recurring theme on the penultimate day of the pope’s visit to South Sudan, an unprecedented joint “pilgrimage of peace” with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Church of Scotland Moderator Iain Greenshields.

“Please, protect, respect, appreciate and honour every woman, every girl, young woman, mother and grandmother. Otherwise, there will be no future,” the pope said during a meeting of the three leaders with people displaced by conflict.

Later, Welby returned to the theme in his address to about 50,000 people at an ecumenical prayer vigil at a mausoleum to South Sudan’s liberation hero John Garang.

“Young men, you will value and honour women, never raping, never violent, never cruel, never using them as if they were there to satisfy desire,” he said.

“Women of South Sudan, I know that on top of the grief of conflict and the responsibility to provide for your families, many of you live with the trauma of sexual violence and the daily fear of mistreatment in your own homes”.

A United Nations report on South Sudan issued last March condemned widespread sexual violence against women and girls in conflict and said it was “fuelled by systemic impunity”.

The report said “widespread rape is being perpetrated by all armed groups across the country, often as part of military tactics for which government and military leaders are responsible”.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 with ethnic groups turning on each other. Despite a 2018 peace deal between the two main antagonists, bouts of inter-ethnic fighting have continued to kill and displace large numbers of civilians.

At the event where the three religious leaders heard accounts from children living in displaced persons camps, the resident U.N. humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Sara Beysolow Nyanti, also raised the issue of pervasive sexual violence against women and girls.

The pope responded by calling on everyone in South Sudan “to ensure that women are protected, respected, valued and honoured”.

Francis said that if women are given opportunities “they will have the ability to change the face of South Sudan, to give it a peaceful and cohesive development!”

Sister Orla Treacy, an Irish member of the Loreto Sisters religious order who runs a school in Rumbek, north of the capital, and works to prevent child marriages, said less than 5% of girls finish secondary school. About 10% of 15-year-old girls and 52% of 18-year-old girls in South Sudan are married, she said.

Treacy and a group of students had walked about 200 km (125 miles) from Lakes State to see the pope. She said the governor of that region had recently signed a decree promising to stop child marriages.

South Sudan has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, according to the World Bank, and poverty and hunger are rife across the country, with two thirds of the population needing humanitarian assistance as a result of conflict as well as three years of catastrophic floods.

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EAST PALESTINE, Ohio—A train derailment and resulting large fire prompted an evacuation order in an Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line on Friday night, covering the area in billows of smoke lit orange by the flames below.

About 50 cars derailed in East Palestine as a train was carrying a variety of freight from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania, rail operator Norfolk Southern said in a statement Saturday. There was no immediate information about what caused the derailment. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters have been pulled from the immediate area and unmanned stream devices are being used protectively while crews try to determine which cars are still actively burning, village officials said in a separate statement Saturday. They said they hoped to use drones to assess the scene in daylight, and warned that residents might hear more explosions as the fire burns.

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The village notified residents that an evacuation order remained in place Saturday morning for people within a mile of the scene. A high school and community center were opened to shelter dozens of people, while residents beyond that radius were urged to stay inside.

The few dozen residents sheltering at the high school included Ann McAnlis, who said a neighbor had texted her about the crash.

“She took a picture of the glow in the sky from the front porch,” McAnlis told WFMJ-TV. “That’s when I knew how substantial this was.”

Mayor Trent Conaway told reporters that firefighters from three states responded. The derailment happened about 51 miles (82 kilometers) northwest of Pittsburgh and within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of the tip of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle.

Freezing temperatures in the single digits complicated the response as trucks pumping water froze, Conaway said.

Hazmat crews also responded to the scene to determine whether hazardous materials were involved, and air quality in the area is being monitored, officials said.

Norfolk Southern said it has personnel on-site coordinating with first responders.

The fire created so much smoke that meteorologists from the region said it was visible on weather radar.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Democratic Party on Saturday approved the reordering of its 2024 presidential primary, replacing Iowa with South Carolina in the leadoff spot as part of a major shake-up meant to empower Black and other minority voters critical to its base of support.

Although changes are still possible throughout the summer and beyond, the formal endorsement by the Democratic National Committee during its meeting in Philadelphia is an acknowledgement that the start of the 2024 primary will look very different from the one in 2020.

States with early contests have a major influence in determining the nominee because White House hopefuls struggling to raise money or gain political traction often drop out before visiting states outside the first five.

The new plan has been championed by President Joe Biden, who is expected to formally announce his reelection campaign in the coming months. The reconfiguring would have South Carolina hold its primary on Feb. 3, followed three days later by New Hampshire and Nevada, which is swapping the caucus it used to hold in favor of a primary.

Georgia would vote fourth on Feb. 13, followed by Michigan on Feb. 27, with much of the rest of the nation set to vote on Super Tuesday in early March.

“The Democratic Party looks like America and so does this proposal,” the party chairman, Jaime Harrison, said before the plan was approved. It “elevates the backbone of our party,” he said.

Biden himself had written the DNC rules committee in December, saying, “We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window.” That committee approved the new lineup, setting the stage for Saturday’s vote.

The move marks a dramatic shift from the current calendar, which saw Iowa start with its caucus, followed by New Hampshire and then Nevada and South Carolina. Four of the first five states under the new plan are battlegrounds, meaning the eventual party winner would be able to lay groundwork in important general election spots.

That’s especially true for Michigan and Georgia, both of which voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020.

The exception is South Carolina, which hasn’t backed a Democrat in a presidential race since 1976, leading some to argue that the party shouldn’t be concentrating so many early primary resources there. But the state’s population is nearly 27% Black, and African American voters represent Democrats’ most consistent base of support. Iowa and New Hampshire are each more than 90% white.

“It shows that the president of the United States has demonstrated his respect for and appreciation of South Carolina,” South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, assistant Democratic leader in the House and a close Biden ally, told The Associated Press.

The revamped calendar could be largely meaningless for 2024 because Biden is expected to run for a second term without a major primary challenge. Also, the DNC has already pledged to revisit the voting calendar before the 2028 presidential election.

Still, this year’s changes could establish precedent, just as a new lineup that moved Nevada and South Carolina into the first states to vote did when the DNC approved a new primary calendar before the 2008 presidential election.

“These things may be symbolic, but they’re realistic,” Clyburn said, noting the party’s typical revisiting of the calendar before each cycle. “This is not unusual.”

The revamped order follows technical glitches that caused Iowa’s 2020 caucus to meltdown. It also gives Biden the chance to repay South Carolina, where he scored a decisive 2020 primary win that revived his presidential campaign after losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Democrats have worked on overhauling their primary lineup for months. Sixteen states and Puerto Rico made presentations before the rules committee last summer on why each should be allowed to go first — or at least join the new top five.

Saturday’s vote, which came during three days of DNC meetings, does not fully end the wrangling over the matter.

“We have created an opportunity for other states to take a run at the pre-window,” said Scott Brennan, a rules committee member from Iowa

South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan have met party requirements to join the party’s new top five. But in Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said he would be unwilling to change his state’s Democratic presidential primary without the GOP moving its primary, which has not yet happened.

New Hampshire has a state law mandating that it hold the nation’s first presidential primary, which Iowa circumvented since 1972 by holding a caucus. New Hampshire Democrats have joined with top state Republicans in pledging to go forward with the nation’s first presidential primary next year regardless of the DNC calendar.

“The DNC is set to punish us despite the fact we don’t have the ability to unilaterally change state law,” said JoAnne Dowdell, a rules committee member from New Hampshire.

New Democratic rules include penalties for states that attempt to jump ahead of others, including possibly losing delegates to the party’s national convention.

“Here’s the reality, no one state should have a lock on going first,” said Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell.

No major challenger has yet emerged from his own party to run against Biden for president next year. Still, top New Hampshire Democrats have warned that another Democrat could run in an unsanctioned primary the state stages and, if Biden skips it in accordance with party rules, could win and embarrass the president — prolonging a primary process that wasn’t supposed to be competitive.

That’s “something no one in this room wants to see,” Dowdell said, though she warned it could happen.

___

Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

BILLINGS, Mont. (NewsNation) — China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that the high-altitude balloon spotted over U.S. airspace is a “civilian airship” that is used for research that blew off its course. However, it was previously accused of being a Chinese spy balloon by the federal government.

NewsNation’s Leland Vittert joined “Morning in America” to discuss the discovery of the high-altitude balloon flying over sensitive sites in the U.S., and the possible responses President Joe Biden is weighing in order to proceed.

“These things have a tendency to escalate rather quickly,” Vittert said. “So there may be very good reasons, it’s worth at times like this, to believe perhaps that what the Pentagon and what the White House is saying, has the possibility of being true. It also has the possibility of being a cover story for a lot of other things that could also be true.”

Watch Leland Vittert’s full interview in the video player above.

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• The least expensive Super Bowl tickets are at least $4,000, with average prices between $7,000 and $10,000.
• Adding the cost of air travel, a hotel, and food could bring a Super Bowl trip for two over $20,000.
• For those with disposable income, the Super Bowl could be a good time to upgrade your home’s entertainment options.

Attending one of America’s biggest cultural events unsurprisingly comes with a massive price tag, but in 2023, technology has improved, which can make watching the Super Bowl at home even better than the real thing.

The cheapest tickets to the big game are $4,000 to $5,000, and the average price for a single ticket is currently $7,000 to $10,000, on secondary market sites.

Factoring in travel to Glendale, Arizona, food, and the cost of a nearby hotel room, estimates for a Super Bowl trip for two could easily reach around $20,000.

The high price tag has led to a different, more upscale atmosphere at the game; Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow said that at last year’s Super Bowl he felt like the entertainment at a “dinner party.”

For fans with that much disposable income who aren’t invested enough to get tickets, high-end upgrades could make a viewing experience at home more comfortable than any nosebleed seats ever could be.

Televisions

The newest upscale televisions (at least ones not coated in alligator skin and gemstones) typically cost from $2,000 to $4,000 and can last for years, compared to a one-time experience of attending the Super Bowl.

Sound systems

A high-level sound system can range from a soundbar to several surround-sound speakers in a room. Similar to TVs, prices can vary depending on quality and number of speakers, but several full-performance systems sit just under $2,000.

Furniture

An Insider report in November found several TV stands ranging from a few hundred dollars to $12,000.

An August report provided options for dozens of couches to upgrade the comfort of your Super Bowl watching experience and your living room.

In total, a new TV, sound system, TV stand, and couch can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars, all the way up to the $20,000+ one would spend on a trip to the real Super Bowl. And it’s possible to have it all bought, delivered and assembled in the week before the game.

Snacks

Staying home provides the opportunity to cook a preferred Super Bowl snack rather than waiting in long lines and paying stadium prices.

At State Farm Stadium where the Super Bowl is held this year, one beer is $7 and hot dogs are $4.75 each. NFL fans spend an average of $58 per game, usually buying for more than one person, according to one study.

Comparatively, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data says an average pack of hot dogs sits at $5.22 per pound. A pack of hot dug buns is about $2.50 at Walmart, and a six-pack of Bud Light costs around $8.50, while craft beers can be more expensive, around $10-15 for a six pack.

Cameron Smith/Nathan Howard/Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images; Rachel Mendelson/Insider

• Once a week on average in 2022, Proud Boys joined or led anti-LGBTQ+ protests held across the US.
• Most of their demonstrating targeted drag performances; many involved violence and armed protesters.
• Insider’s interactive map shows what happened each time they joined anti-LGBTQ+ protests last year.

The Proud Boys are on the march against the LGBTQ+ community — and especially against drag performers.

No other militant, far-right group comes close to the Proud Boys’ new-found dedication to public displays of homophobia, alarming new numbers show.

Once a week on average last year, and from coast to coast, the group waved their black flag at “straight pride” and “save our children” rallies or shouted slurs at tense, sometimes violent protests against Pride Month celebrations, queer school curricula, and gender-affirming healthcare for youth.

Drag —an ancient, misunderstood art form — was the Proud Boys’ most common target.

Out of 53 anti-LGBTQ rallies the extremist group led or joined in 2022, 60 percent were attempts to disrupt drag events with baseless taunts of “grooming” and “pedophilia” — efforts equally divided between adult-only performances and family-friendly parties and story hours. 

The Proud Boys’ presence fueled a nationwide surge in anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations last year, according to the latest stats from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.

Overall, there were at least 174 anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations across the country in 2022, the most ACLED has seen since it began counting in 2020, Jones said.

“Among the far-right militias and militant social movements that we track, the Proud Boys were the top group involved in anti-LGBT+ incidents in 2022 by a significant margin,” said Sam Jones, who directs communications for ACLED.

ACLED recently shared its raw data with Insider. 

It shows alarming trends. 

Proud Boys’ LGBTQ+ protests averaged just one or two per month for most of 2022.

Then last fall, their activity climbed. Proud Boys joined in seven anti-LGBTQ+ protests in September, 10 in October and 6 in November. In December, they protested at 13 anti-LGBTQ+ protests, more than in any other month last year, ACLED data shows. 

These included demonstrations against the Fresno Drag Festival in California and against five “Drag Queen Christmas” shows — in Santa Rosa California; Grand Prairie, Texas; Knoxville, Tennessee; and in Fort Lauderdale and Clearwater, Florida.

To be clear, drag is not synonymous with LGBTQ+ and one doesn’t need to identify as queer to participate in drag. But the performance art form has become a big, sparkly avatar for the extreme right in their pushback against LGBTQ+ rights.

“There was this really big push in December,” against drag in particular, confirms Emily Kaufman, a researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

The push is strategic, she said.

The Proud Boys are tracking the culture wars in search of media attention and new recruits. As public attention shifts away from their previous mainstays of anti-COVID mandates and “stop the steal” rallies, the group is moving on to the next hot-button issue, she said.

In 2020, only two percent of the group’s marches and protests targeted LGBTQ+ issues or events. In 2021, it was only 8 percent. But last year, anti-LGBTQ+ events comprised 40 percent of their demonstrating.

And the group’s anti-LGBTQ+ push is continuing, said Kaufman, who tracks the Proud Boys’ estimated 119 chapters in 46 states.

Proud Boys are turning up these days at nearly half of all anti-LGBTQ+ activity across the country, she told Insider.

More protests, more weapons

Weapons — including paint guns, mace, pepper spray, fireworks, handguns, and rifles — are also turning up at these protests more often, the data shows.

Firearms were reported at 13 anti-LGBTQ protests in 2022, including in the hands of pro-LGBTQ+ counterprotesters. Nine of these armed protests happened in the last four months of the year. 

“The only scary thing about a drag story hour is one of these conservative white men with a gun — it’s not what we’re reading, it’s not what we’re singing, it’s not our arts and crafts projects,” said Jonathan Hamilt, founder of the national Drag Story Hour organization, which supports 50 chapters around the US, bringing readings to public libraries and schools for seven years.

“It’s literally the opposition trying to kill us.”

In another disturbing trend, the Proud Boys — who are considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ADL, and who are accused as key players in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — are building alliances with other extremist groups, ACLED data suggests.

Neo-Nazis accompanied Proud Boys at nine anti-LGBTQ+ events, in Texas, Oregon, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and — twice — in New York City. 

Alliances of hate 

One need only look at a single day  — December 3, a Saturday — to see Proud Boys attending four anti-LGBTQ+ protests alongside a grab-bag of the most extreme extremist groups, including neo-Nazis, QAnon, and the white nationalist Patriot Front.

ACLED data records Proud Boys members mixing it up with heil-Hitlering members of the neo-Nazi group NSF outside a charity drag performance in Lakeland, Florida. “Drag queens are pedophiles with AIDS,” one sign read at that demonstration.

That same Saturday, some 20 Proud Boys joined an anti-LGBTQ+ “Protect the Children” rally on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They were joined by QAnon conspiracy theorists and a group called “Gays Against Groomers.”

Also that day, in New York City, at least three Proud Boys rallied alongside anti-COVID-vaccine groups and still more flag-flying neo-Nazis outside a drag story hour at the Staten Island Children’s Museum.

And at the fourth event that Saturday, more than 50 Proud Boys rallied against a family-friendly holiday drag show outside a Unitarian church in Columbus, Ohio. With them were some 30 Patriot Front members, who handed out propaganda alongside pro-Nazis who heil-Hitlered at passing cars. 

At least six people outside that church, including one counter-demonstrator, were armed with long guns, ACLED reported.

“It really makes no sense to say you’re here to protect the children when all you try to do is scare them, bring weapons, shout homophobic and transphobic slurs,” noted Hamilt. “That doesn’t seem like love to me.” 

One drag king’s experience

“Oliver H,” a New York City drag king with a self-described, multi-colored “mohawk to the sky,” has read to kids at dozens of Drag Story Hour events, many of which spurred protests.

But he knew he’d better draw some extra flowers when he painted on his beard for his December 29 reading at a public library in Queens.

The local congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had rallied her supporters on Instagram: Go to the reading in force, she urged them, and “Defend Drag Story Hour in NYC!” 

The high-profile post caught the attention of protesters and activated a network of what Hamilt calls the story hour “defenders,” including members of the “Parasol Patrol” — counter-demonstrators who deploy giant, rainbow umbrellas and ridiculously loud singing to shield children and parents from homophobic shouting and signage.

“I was like, you know what? This is going to be a crazy day,” Oliver H said he told himself, as he worked to make his makeup especially bright that day.

“I wanted to have a very colorful face the kids could focus on,” the former daycare teacher told Insider, “instead of everything else that was going to be happening.”

Proud Boys protest at a drag story hour in Jackson Heights, Queens, on December 29, 2022.

Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Video of the event shows at least eight men in Proud Boys regalia standing on the sidewalk across from the library. One holds a black flag with the group’s emblem. Others hold signs reading, “If you won’t fight for your kids we will!” and, “Why must they/them sexualize children?” 

“Send the groomers home!” shouted a Proud Boy holding a sign reading, “Groom dogs, not kids.”

“They want their signs to be as provocative as possible,” in hopes of provoking a fight, said the ADL’s Kaufman. “As incendiary as possible.”

By ACLED’s count, the Queens protest was the last of 18 times in 2022 that Proud Boys targeted drag story hours, where extravagantly-dressed performers read to young children to promote literacy and tolerance.

Looking down from a library window, Oliver H could see the Proud Boys waving their flag and signs in their black and yellow “colors,” standing out among a crowd of some 100 other story hour protesters.

They were outnumbered by some 300 pro-LGBTQ+ counter-protesters, including rainbow-umbrella-waving Parasol Patrol members.

The counter-protesters beat drums and sang along to amplified Disney songs — intentionally chosen, Oliver H explained, in hopes that images posted online would quickly be taken down “for copyright issues.”

“On one side of the street, I saw signs calling me a groomer,” he remembered recently.

“On the other side of the street, they were singing ‘High School Musical.’ Each side of the street was so different.”

The 50 young children and their adult loved ones who attended the hearing could hear all of the singing, and none of the homophobic slurs.

Drag king Oliver H reads to children at a Drag Story Hour in Queens, NY on December 12, 2022.

Oliver H/Insider

“The singing drowned out the shouting,” remembered Oliver H, who performs at adults-only venues under a far more risque name, “Oliver Herface.”

“The kids just thought there was a fun parade.”

He read them a children’s book, “‘Twas the Night Before Pride,” about the Stonewall uprising, the 1969 protest at a Greenwich Village gay bar that catalyzed America’s gay rights movement.

“It felt very meta, reading that story while everything was going on outside,” Oliver H said.

“It kind of made me feel like I was in a storybook myself.”

The protests are only making them stronger, said Hamilt, Drag Story Hour’s founder.

“We’ve had more requests, more people wanting to start chapters, more donations, and more people backing us” as a result, Hamilt said. 

“Too many times, the queer community has borne the brunt of, you know, heterosexual, white, patriarchy trauma,” he said of groups like the Proud Boys.

“We’re tired of being the punching bag for these people to figure out their own trauma,” he said, adding with a laugh, “so, we’re just waiting for the healing to start.”

Compassionate Eye Foundation/Martin Barraud/OJO Images Ltd / Getty Images

• The US economy isn’t in a recession yet.
• But the tech, housing, and manufacturing industries might be already.
• The more industries that falter, the greater the odds the whole economy falls with them.

No, the US economy isn’t in a recession yet. But some of its key industries might be, suggesting the desired “soft landing” is far from a sure thing.

Bloomberg economist Anna Wong, for instance, recently put the chances of a US recession this year at 80%. But as more industries fall into downturns of their own, she said it could become increasingly difficult for the US economy to avoid the same fate. 

“We have a manufacturing recession, a housing recession, a tech recession,” she said in a Bloomberg post last week. “Things are starting to add up.”

It’s possible, however, that the US simply experiences a “rolling recession,” Loyola Marymount University finance professor Sung Won Sohn told CNBC. In this scenario, parts of the economy would “take turns suffering rather than simultaneously” — and the broader economy would never reach recession status. 

Recent GDP and retail sales figures point to a slowing but still-growing economy, and economists say the US could enter a recession in 2023. That said, the labor market is still shockingly good, with the US adding a surprisingly large 517,000 jobs in January and seeing the lowest unemployment rate since 1969. Jobless claims figures over the past month remain low despite layoffs in Big Tech. 

If the US economy does ultimately fall into a recession, it will partially be because the following three industries dragged it down with them. 

The Fed’s efforts to cool rising prices may have doomed housing 

Ever since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat inflation, experts knew it could be bad news for the housing industry. Rising rates have led to elevated mortgage rates which, in combination with already-high home prices, have dampened demand. 

As early as last September, ING’s chief economist James Knightley told Insider the US housing market had entered a recession. 

“We have only had one monthly fall in house prices but with more supply coming on the market at a time when demand is weakening rapidly implies that prices fall further,” Knightley said at the time, adding that home affordability was “stretched to the limit.” 

Five months later, things haven’t improved much.

“The housing market is already in recession,” Fannie Mae’s Deputy Chief Economist Mark Palim told Insider, pointing to the “pretty dramatic declines” in home sales in recent months. Fannie Mae is projecting a roughly 7% decline in home prices over the next 24 months. 

Home applications have risen in recent weeks as mortgage rates have fallen slightly, but Mortgage Bankers Association economist Joel Kan told Insider that homebuying activity “remains tepid.”

Americans cutting back spending is bad news for manufacturing companies

US consumers facing inflation and dwindling savings are spending less on goods. That’s bad news for the manufacturing industry.

On Wednesday, Reuters markets analyst John Kemp said in a column that US manufacturers “probably entered a recession” in the fourth quarter of last year, based on the new results of the monthly Institute for Supply Management Report. The index, a survey-based measure of activity across the sector, fell to its lowest level since March and April of 2020, and excluding these months, the lowest level since the Great Recession in June of 2009. In December, PMI, another indicator of manufacturing activity, fell to its lowest level since May of 2020. 

While the manufacturing industry has avoided widespread layoffs thus far, Kemp attributed this in part to “labor hoarding,” or a hesitancy from business to let workers go after having a difficult time attracting labor over the prior year. 

The industry hasn’t been entirely unscathed by layoffs either. 3M, for instance, recently announced it was cutting 2,500 manufacturing roles across the globe. 

Tech companies have led the way with layoffs

If any area of the economy is going through some challenges, it’s the tech industry.

In 2022, tech companies like Meta and Twitter laid off roughly 150,000 workers across the globe. While this fell far short of the two million workers let go during the dotcom bubble of 2001, it was well above the roughly 65,000 workers laid off in the sector during the worst years of the Great Recession. 

Layoffs have come full speed ahead so far in 2023. There were over 55,000 reported tech layoffs during the first 20 days of January, more than the entire first half of 2022. 

The industry’s struggles have been driven by a myriad of factors, including rising interest rates and slowing advertising demand. It’s led some to declare that a “tech recession” is already upon us. 

The layoffs, in particular, however, can partially be attributed to companies scaling up their workforces too quickly. 

When the pandemic took hold, and Americans flocked to streaming entertainment, at-home fitness, food delivery, and ecommerce, many companies thought this shift would be a permanent acceleration — and hired in mass as a result. But today, businesses in these industries are reckoning with the possibility they got a bit ahead of their skis.

It’s why despite significant job cuts, companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet still have significantly more workers than they did a few years ago.