Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is questioning the recent spate of layoffs at several major employers, including Amazon ( AMZN ), Target ( TGT ) and UPS ( UPS ).
In a letter sent to executives at Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon, Home Depot (HD), Meta (META), Nike (NKE), Verizon (VZ), Target and UPS on Sunday, Warren gave the companies until March 30 to detail how much tax relief they will receive in 2025 under President Trump’s One Beauty Act, whether they anticipate any tariff refunds and whether they have made any contributions to Trump’s projects, among other issues.
Collectively, these companies have lost tens of thousands of jobs over the past few months.
Warren wrote that because of the current economic conditions, “newly unemployed workers may be forced to take low-wage jobs — if they can find them at all.”
While the overall layoff rate remains near historic lows, any worker currently out of work must contend with one of the tightest labor markets in years. This is due to the fact that few new jobs are being created, few workers are leaving their current positions, and competition for entry-level jobs is fierce even among seasoned professionals.
Warren questioned why the companies were still laying off workers even after last summer’s sweeping tax law brought new benefits to businesses.
For example, Meta “will pay an effective federal income tax rate of just over 3.5% in 2025, the lowest since the company went public as Facebook in 2012,” Matt Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy wrote in an analysis last month.
Reuters reported over the weekend that Meta was considering cutting 20% of its workforce.
“The chain of events behind these layoffs, which occurred after your company enjoyed huge tax breaks from President Trump’s tax law and earned record profits last year, raises questions about the rationale for the layoffs and whether they represent yet another example of the Trump administration’s encouragement of corporate greed,” Warren wrote in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
A Meta spokesperson told Yahoo Finance that Warren’s letter was “based on speculative reporting of a theoretical approach.” Other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Other companies’ reasons for layoffs vary, with some arguing that artificial intelligence improves productivity, while analysts point to corporate bloat, and others saying they simply want to be more efficient.
