Comment by petilon

Not all of it is "copycat". During the pandemic consumer spending moved online. People purchased hardware to work from home, ordered more from Amazon and other online stores as opposed to physical stores, used online services such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams more. Tech companies responded to the increased demand by increasing the pace of hiring. Were they wrong to do so? Possibly, because they should have expected that not all of the increased demand would stick around once the pandemic is over. As it happened, the demand ebbed when the pandemic was over, so they are stuck with excess manpower, which now has to be reduced. This doesn't explain all layoffs, however. Some of it is just opportunistic - now is a good time to do layoffs without looking weak.