Its a combination of factors. The end of ZIRP made raising money more expensive and the tax change made hiring Software Engineers more expensive. Small businesses faced existential challenges and cut back, so now there was less demand from them. Then Big Tech realized they needed to layoff to post better numbers to continue boosting their stock (even though they made enough revenue) so started cutting jobs.

With this change one of those factors has been eliminated, so we will see startups/small businesses become a lot more competitive.