Dell Technologies’ workforce has shrunk by 12,000 employees between January 2024 and January 2025. This is evident from a recent annual report by Dell to the US stock market regulator SEC. It is unclear whether all of these are forced redundancies.
Dell Technologies’ annual overview filing to the SEC shows that the workforce declined significantly between January 2024 and January 2025. In total, there were no fewer than 12,000 fewer employees after this period.
During this period, the total workforce fell from 120,000 at the start to 108,000 at the end. This is slightly lower than the expected 12,500 redundancies that were expected in August last year, as insiders reported to The Register and were confirmed.
Not always layoffs
It is unclear whether all 12,000 employees laid off were actually affected by targeted layoff rounds. There are often other reasons why the number of employees decreases.
In September of last year, Dell Technologies admitted that AI now performs much of the work. Employees may also have left on their own accord or been removed from legacy products that have been discontinued.
In addition, it is not clear whether the layoffs include those due to Dell Technologies’ new return-to-office policy. Failure to comply with this policy is said to increase the chance of dismissal.
Size of workforce often fluctuates
Over the past five years, the number of Dell Technologies employees has fluctuated like a yo-yo.
In 2020, there were still 134,000 Dell employees, but as of January 1 of this year, there were only 108,000. Between 2020 and 2021, the number dropped from 134,000 to 124,000. In the Covid years between 2021 and 2023, however, the number of employees increased again and remained stable at 133,000 for two years. Then, between 2023 and 2024, the number of employees decreased again from 133,000 to 124,000.
This does not include the numbers of former VMware employees who moved to Dell Technologies or left after the acquisition by Broadcom. However, the employees of Secureworks, acquired by Sophos, have been included, although the final decision on this was only made after the recent filing. Sophos itself fired 3,000 Secureworks employees immediately after the acquisition.
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