America's biggest tech companies are worth $1.8 trillion. Why don't they employ more people?

(Image credit: PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)

published 28 October 2016

The star-like rise of the tech industry has come with one big downside, The Wall Street Journal reports: Money is pouring in, but jobs are disappearing.

The five largest U.S.-based tech companies by stock-market value — Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, and Oracle — are worth a combined $1.8 trillion. That's 80 percent more than the five most valuable tech companies in 2000: Cisco, Intel, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft. But today's tech giants employ 22 percent fewer workers than their predecessors. The big five had a combined 434,500 employees last year, compared with 556,520 at the top five firms in 2000.

Some of it has to do with companies outsourcing production to foreign countries with cheaper labor, as well as the increased use of machines to replace routine, low-skill work. "As much as $2 trillion worth of human economic activity could be automated away using existing technologies," The Journal reports.