We report the first observation of the non-magnetic Barkhausen effect in van der Waals layered crystals, specifically, between the T d and 1T' phases in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe 2 . Thinning down the MoTe 2 crystal from bulk material to about 25nm results in a drastic strengthening of the hysteresis in the phase transition, with the difference in critical temperature increasing from ~40K to more than 300K. The Barkhausen effect appears for thin samples and the temperature range of the Barkhausen zone grows approximately linearly with reducing sample thickness, pointing to a surface origin of the phase pinning defects. The distribution of the Barkhausen jumps shows a power law behavior, with its critical exponent α = 1.27, in good agreement with existing scaling theory. Temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy on MoTe 2 crystals of various thicknesses shows results consistent with our transport measurements.zone grows approximately linearly with reducing sample thickness as determined by four-probe resistivity measurement. The distribution of the Barkhausen jumps shows a power law behavior, with its critical exponent = 1.27, consistent with theoretical expectations as explained later in this letter. Temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy is also performed on MoTe 2 crystals of various thicknesses, showing results consistent with our transport measurements.