From January via August U.S. tech layoffs reached at the least 94,046, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the identical interval of 2025. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, lots of the cuts got here as tech corporations redirected spending towards AI and restructured operations to cut back prices.
The yr began off on a busy notice on the layoff entrance. After job cuts dropped sharply in December 2025 to five,151, they surged in January to over 20,000. May was significantly brutal. The month drove the year-to-date improve, recording 31,513 layoffs — together with Meta’s 8,000-job discount — the very best month-to-month rely since March 2023, when layoffs reached 36,602.
Recent months point out a slowdown. Layoffs fell every month after May, reaching 2,347 in August. Overall, June-August 2026 layoffs totaled 19,331, down 16.2% yr over yr. The decline suggests latest easing, although it’s too early to ascertain an enduring reversal.
Artificial intelligence has turn into a way more frequent rationalization for layoff choices, famous Roger Lee, founding father of Layoffs.fyi. AI was cited in 33% of tech layoff occasions this yr, up from simply 1% in 2024. His tracker attributes 92,913 layoffs globally, or 72% of this yr’s whole, to AI.
“There’s been little evidence that AI is actually replacing the work of the human employees let go,” Lee mentioned of this yr’s largest AI-attributed layoffs. He believes established tech corporations are spending closely on AI and reducing prices elsewhere, hoping to extend productiveness with smaller workforces.
Companies reducing
This yr, we’ve seen numerous Big Tech and publicly traded corporations, in addition to startups, make deep cuts.
But curiously, as with final yr, public tech corporations have dominated layoff headlines in 2026 to date, led by Amazon and Meta.
“Big companies [have] made up about 87% of everyone laid off in 2026, which is similar to last year, when they made up 85%,” Lee mentioned.
Amazon accounted for 17,388 cuts this yr to date via August. Those included a 16,000-worker RIF announcement in January and several other smaller subsequent rounds. Meta was subsequent with 10,400 layoffs, together with an 8,000-job discount carried out in May that represented 10% of its workforce.
Microsoft and PayPal recorded the next-largest totals, letting go of 4,800 and 4,760 staff, respectively. Block, Cisco and Cognizant every recorded 4,000 layoffs, adopted by Intuit with 3,000, Amdocs with 2,900 and Visa with 2,600. Notably, the Top 10 listing spans quite a lot of sectors, together with cloud computing, social media, funds and enterprise know-how.
We must also notice that in accordance with stories, Oracle’s workforce fell by about 21,000 staff in its fiscal yr ended May 31, 2026, however the employee rely and actual timing for every of these reported cuts was unclear, so we didn’t embrace that whole in our tracker.
Among privately held corporations within the tracker, Epic Games recorded the most important disclosed whole at 1,000, adopted by HR software program supplier UKG with 950 and MyHeritage with 500. Those figures had been considerably smaller than the most important public-company reductions, though undisclosed layoff counts restrict comparisons between the 2 teams.
And in early September, Uber reportedly laid off 3,300 employees, or 10% of its workforce.
An AI focus
But corporations are additionally altering their priorities. They’re placing extra money into AI and reducing groups engaged on different elements of the enterprise. “They’re letting people go from one area of their organization while they might even be hiring in an area that is focused on AI,” Challenger mentioned. That’s why an organization could lay folks off and promote new jobs on the identical time.
Tech has introduced extra job cuts than every other business this yr, Challenger mentioned. Across the U.S. financial system, layoffs are down considerably from final yr, although that comparability is skewed by the big variety of federal job cuts in 2025. When in contrast with the interval simply after the pandemic, when employers struggled to search out employees, layoffs stay elevated.
Few corporations exterior tech have blamed job cuts on AI to date, Challenger mentioned.
It’s not all destructive although, in his view. There’s potential upside for programmers, he mentioned. If AI makes software program inexpensive to construct, corporations in different industries would possibly embark on initiatives they couldn’t afford earlier than. That may imply new jobs exterior tech, although it’s too early to know whether or not these jobs will make up for those being reduce.
Also, it seems that some corporations may be regretting their layoff choices. Amazon is reaching out to eligible former staff about open roles throughout the corporate, together with in its cloud-computing and AI companies, in accordance with a Business Insider report.
