The Bay Area suffered a significant loss with employers eliminating over 600 jobs in various sectors, including tech, life sciences, hotel and retail, during March. Series of layoffs were reported in several companies, such as SK hynix, AppLovin, onsemi, Cruise, Niantic, Cepheid, Cargo Therapeutics, Sutro Biopharma, JCPenney and the Waterfront Hotel as per the official Warn notices filed with state labor officials. The layoffs impacted employees across San Jose, Oakland, Fremont, Newark, San Francisco, San Carlos, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara. The jobs were terminated permanently, as reported to the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD).

Among the layoffs are the job cuts at chip company, SK Hynix in San Jose, software firm AppLovin in Palo Alto, mobile app company Niantic in San Francisco, semiconductor company onsemi in San Jose, autonomous vehicle company Cruise, impacting San Francisco and Sunnyvale employees, biotech firm Cargo Therapeutics in San Carlos, and retail store JCPenney in San Bruno. Closures also included the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland’s Jack London Square and medical devices firm Cepheid in Fremont, Newark, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.

Given the job losses, affected staff, especially those who qualify for unemployment benefits, would find it beneficial to familiarize themselves with how to get a hold of EDD. The EDD manages unemployment insurance claims, so it’s important to know how to contact them if you are laid off. Eddcaller.com is a helpful resource to reach EDD customer service and provides support for reaching a live person at EDD California for inquiries about unemployment benefits, claims, and other EDD services.