TL;DR: layoffs.fyi counts 128,536 tech employees laid off at 299 companies between January 1 and September 10, 2026, already more than in all of 2025. In the US, Challenger, Gray & Christmas counts 155,126 tech job cuts through August, up 52%, while announced cuts across all industries fell 41%.
Block let go of more than 40% of its staff in February, and Intuit cut 17% in May. Fewer companies are cutting deeper: 299 so far this year, against 1,194 in 2023.
On layoffs.fyi’s totals, that works out to about 430 employees per company, against 220 in 2023.
- 1Across the whole US economy, layoffs are flat: the BLS layoffs and discharges rate was 1.0% in July.
- 2Employers named AI in 116,175 US job cuts through August, the top reason this year, and the companies disagree on what that means.
- 3The BLS Information sector, the closest official proxy for tech, averaged a 1.84% monthly layoff rate in 2026, against 1.07% for all industries.
- 4Public companies made 84% of this year’s layoffs on layoffs.fyi, by our tally: 108,459 employees across 128 announcements.
How Many Tech Employees Have Been Laid Off in 2026?
layoffs.fyi counts 128,536 tech employees laid off at 299 companies from January 1 to September 10, 2026. That passes the 122,606 it recorded for the whole of 2025, with close to four months of the year left.
Roger Lee started the tracker in 2020. It logs tech layoffs worldwide that a company or the press reported, one entry per announcement. The total is a floor: 120 of the 333 entries for 2026 give a percentage or a shutdown but no headcount.
2023 remains the record at 265,660. So far 2026 sits fourth of the years from 2022 to 2026, behind 2023, 2022 at 165,269 and 2024 at 152,922.
Month by month
January and June were the heaviest months, and one company drove each. Amazon’s 16,000 made up most of January’s 25,183.
Oracle’s 21,000 makes up most of June’s 26,460, a figure layoffs.fyi takes from the fall in headcount in Oracle’s annual report rather than from an announced layoff.
August was the quietest month by headcount, at 3,485, though it logged 41 announcements. The cuts that month were small: the largest was Zillow’s 500.
The US count from Challenger
Challenger, Gray & Christmas counts job cuts announced by US-based employers across 30 industries. Its August 2026 report puts technology at 155,126 cuts from January to August, up 52% from 102,239 a year earlier.
Its 2025 year-end report counted 154,445 tech cuts for the whole year, a total 2026 has already passed.
The rest of the US economy moved the other way. Employers announced 529,914 cuts in all industries through August, down 41% from 892,362 and the lowest January to August total since 2022.
Technology made up 29% of them, more than any other industry.
- Tech companies only
- Worldwide, filed by company HQ
- From company statements and press reports
- Cuts announced by US-based employers
- 30 industries, technology one of them
- Records the reason each employer gives
- A survey of US employers
- All layoffs and discharges, every industry
- Information is the nearest sector to tech
The three totals cannot be added together. Both trackers still put 2026 ahead of 2025.
The Largest Tech Layoffs of 2026
Amazon’s cut of about 16,000 roles, announced January 28, is the largest this year.
Beth Galetti’s message to employees said some teams were only now finishing the work begun in October to reduce layers, increase ownership and remove bureaucracy.
Most US-based employees affected get 90 days to look for a new role inside Amazon.
Oracle and Dell cut without a number
Neither company announced a layoff figure, so the annual reports are the record. Oracle’s fiscal 2026 10-K lists about 141,000 full-time employees at May 31, 2026, down from 162,000, and its US workforce fell from 58,000 to 49,000.
Oracle’s restructuring costs, severance included, rose to $1.84 billion from $374 million. The filing ties them to its cloud business. Dell’s 10-K shows about 97,000 employees at January 30, 2026, against 108,000 a year earlier.
Public companies, repeat cuts and shutdowns
Listed companies made most of this year’s cuts. By our tally of the layoffs.fyi database, companies it lists as post-IPO account for 108,459 of the 128,536 employees, from 128 of the 333 announcements. In 2025 they made 99,088 of 122,606.
The shutdowns include Germany’s Hale, Chile’s Orionx and India’s Satvacart. The tracker logged 43 shutdowns in all of 2025.
Which Sectors and Countries Are Cutting?
Technology leads US job cuts by more than three to one. Transportation is second in Challenger’s January to August table, with 42,279.
Most industries cut less than last year. Twenty of the 30 that Challenger tracks are down, government by 92% and retail by 84%. Fintech, which Challenger counts apart from technology, rose 305% to 7,347 cuts.
layoffs.fyi tags industries its own way, inside tech. On those tags, retail leads 2026 at 20,200, most of it Amazon, followed by consumer at 17,544, led by Meta, and hardware at 14,273, led by Dell’s 11,000.
By country
US-headquartered companies account for 103,957 of this year’s 128,536 layoffs on layoffs.fyi, or 81%, by our tally of the tracker’s public database. India is second with 4,725 across 25 layoffs, ahead of Israel at 4,611.
The tracker files each layoff under the company’s headquarters, not where the employees worked, so Oracle’s cuts count as American wherever they landed.
The largest cuts it files under India are Livspace at 1,000 in February, CorroHealth at 800 in July and Flipkart at 500 in March.
Southeast Asia adds little to the totals, and thin reporting is part of the reason: Shopee, Lazada and Tokopedia all appear in the 2026 data with a percentage and no headcount.
The Straits Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Shopee cut about 8% of its developer workforce in June, QA roles included.
Is AI Causing Tech Layoffs?
Block and Cloudflare named AI as the reason for their cuts. More companies linked AI to where the money is going, and the trackers count both kinds. Jack Dorsey put Block’s case in the February 26 shareholder letter, as reported by CNN:
“A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week.”
Jack Dorsey, Block shareholder letter, February 26, 2026
Cloudflare made the same argument in its May 7 announcement. Co-founder Matthew Prince told investors Cloudflare’s own AI use had risen more than 600% in three months.
“Today’s actions are not a cost-cutting exercise or an assessment of individuals’ performance; they are about Cloudflare defining how a world-class, high-growth company operates and creates value in the agentic AI era.”
Cloudflare, May 7, 2026
Microsoft took the opposite line. Its chief people officer, Amy Coleman, wrote that the eliminated roles “are not being replaced by AI,” then described what AI does change:
“Some of the tasks we do every day can now be automated, and that means we all need to keep learning, keep building new skills, and keep adapting as the work evolves.”
Amy Coleman, Microsoft, July 6, 2026, via TechCrunch
Meta said its cuts would help offset investment in areas like AI. Amazon’s January message did not mention AI.
How the trackers count AI
The layoffs.fyi AI layoffs page flags a layoff as AI-related when “the company or press attributed” it to AI, cuts made “to fund AI investment” included.
On that definition, 92,713 of this year’s 128,536 qualify, or 72%, against 29% in 2025, by our tally of the flag.
The flag is wide. Amazon’s January cut carries it, though Amazon’s announcement names layers and bureaucracy. Oracle carries it on the strength of press coverage of its annual filing.
Challenger records the reason the employer gives. Employers named AI in 116,175 US job cuts from January to August, about 22% of the total and the top reason this year, against 54,836 in all of 2025.
AI led the monthly reasons from March to July, then dropped to fourth in August with 3,462.
In its Shopee report, The Straits Times noted a debate over “AI-washing”: companies citing AI for cuts that may owe more to pandemic-era over-hiring. Our analysis of AI’s impact on the job market in 2026 covers the employment side.
What the Government Data Says
US layoffs overall are flat. The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey counted 1.7 million layoffs and discharges in July 2026, a rate of 1.0%, little changed from June.
The Information sector, the closest BLS category to tech, is the exception. Its layoff rate averaged 1.84% a month from January to July, against 1.31% in 2025 and 1.07% for all industries this year.
March reached 2.2%, its highest month since April 2020. The averages are ours, from the monthly BLS rates.
In levels, the sector recorded about 356,000 layoffs and discharges from January to July, against about 262,000 in the same months of 2025, by our sum.
It covers software publishing, data processing, telecoms, broadcasting and web search portals, so read it as a proxy for tech, not a total.
WARN notices
A WARN notice is often the first public record of where a US cut lands. The federal WARN Act requires employers with 100 or more employees to give at least 60 days’ written notice before a mass layoff of 50 or more employees at one site.
Uber announced about 3,300 cuts worldwide on September 2. The same day, Washington’s WARN database logged an Uber notice for 93 workers in Seattle, effective November 2.
Notices cover only US sites above the legal thresholds, so they locate a cut but cannot total a year.
Hiring While Tech Cuts
A team that lost headcount still has its roadmap, and location changes the rate.
A mid-level freelance developer costs $85 to $135 an hour in the US on our 2026 US rate data, against $22 to $58 in the Philippines and $20 to $52 in India for the same work.
Our cost to hire a developer tables split those rates by stack and seniority.
Second Talent matches you with pre-vetted senior engineers from nine Asian markets within 24 hours and employs them under employer of record, and 92% of the talent we place stays.
Tell us the role you need to fill, or see how we hire developers in the Philippines and eight other markets.
FAQs
Is tech still hiring in 2026?
Yes. Challenger counts 19,751 announced tech hires from January to August, more than any other industry, out of 119,825 across US employers, up 37% on 2025.
Our tech job market trends and tech industry hiring statistics pages cover the demand side.
Which tech companies have announced layoffs more than once in 2026?
Amazon has seven separate entries on layoffs.fyi this year, PayPal and Meta four each, and Samsung, Uber and Salesforce three each, by our tally of the database to September 10.
Where can I check whether a company filed a WARN notice?
Each state labor department publishes the WARN notices filed with it. Washington’s Employment Security Department, for example, lists the employer, location, number of workers and effective date.
