More and more companies are putting managers on the chopping block.
Between May 2022 and May 2025, the number of managers and executives at public companies fell by 6.1% and 4.6%, respectively, according to data from Live Data Technologies, reported on by the Wall Street Journal. Google, for instance, reduced its management headcount by 35% between 2024 and 2025, CNBC reported. Microsoft, Intel, and Amazon have also flattened their corporate structures.
“What they’ve done is taken a hard look at that middle layer of management and are trying to determine what is more efficient for their business models and make cuts there,” said Karan Ferrell-Rhodes, CEO and founder of consulting firm Shockingly Different Leadership. “That was an area that…over the last three to four years, has been ripe for reevaluation for companies.”
Why cuts are on the rise. Susan Leger Ferraro, CEO of consulting firm G3 Works, told HR Brew that companies may be scaling back middle management to cut costs, ineffective managers, and layers of corporate bureaucracy.
“There is this lack of communication that happens, and breakdown in communication, based on there being too many cooks in the kitchen, there being too many leaders, mid-level managers between executives, and the information not being passed properly,” Ferraro said. “If I was a CEO, me doing this and downsizing my middle-level managers would resolve for those things.”
While many managers are effective at leading people and hitting KPIs, some are not, Ferraro said, so it might make sense for a large company to reduce its managers by 20% to 30%. From an operational and financial standpoint, a ratio of one manager to five to eight direct reports is reasonable, she added.
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What can HR do? If people leaders are presented with a plan to reduce managers, Ferrell-Rhodes said they can either counter with alternative cost-cutting measures, or prepare by prioritizing employee engagement and morale efforts.
“You have to balance the financial pressures with the realization of what is needing to be done,” Ferrell-Rhodes said. “They’ve got to be change agents with that, either be innovative in finding a better alternative…or they’ve got to find a way to make it happen with the least negative impact possible.”
Before moving forward with a reduction in headcount, Ferraro said HR pros should ask employees for feedback about their managers, because they work most closely with them. And since middle managers are often an organization’s “wisdom point,” she recommended strategic consideration be given before any eliminations.
“Before I made the decision, I would be working with them. If you gave me six months to do that, I would be working with them closely,” she said. “So that I had my finger on the pulse of who was actually performing consistently that we wanted to keep on the team.”