Tech industry lays off nearly 80,000 employees in the first quarter of 2026 — almost 50% of affected positions cut due to AI
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tech-industry-lays-off-nearly-80-000-employees-in-the-first-quarter-of-2026-almost-50-percent-of-affected-positions-cut-due-to-ai
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In fact zero of those jobs where cut because of AI.
We still have not gotten back to pre COVID levels lol 😂
I love stupid people repeating stupid shit
Due to failing data center investments sucking up cashflow and income. Economy is terrible due to tariffs, war, and other mismanagement. AI is replacing exactly no one. Slop is replacing workers and delivering worse results.
I’ve seen the Claude code produced by others. AI in its current form can replace some of the “low level bitch work” of others but organizations that cut their development staff for AI are going to very soon find security and functionality holes they can’t fill.
Lies. Actually Indian offshoring and gcc
Can we stop puppeting this BS. 80k jobs were offshored…this is not AI this is companies using AI to offshore American jobs. Not even 40k were due to AI, AI is not there yet no matter what AI bro or C-shit tells you. This is a way to pump C-level pay and investments into AI. For many companies this is bonus time so the C-Level wants thier bonuses and AI Bros want those bonuses to be invested.
# almost 50% of affected positions CLAIMED TO BE cut due to AI
I’m just here to let everyone know that Block laid off nearly 40% of their staff in Feb due to “AI efficiencies”
I’d also like to point out that they’re holding 8500 BTC, which means they’ve lost about $600M in the last 6 months.
Finally, I’d like to point out that those two points above are totally unconnected in any way.
Attributed to AI*
Big difference in the reason for layoffs and justification given for layoffs.
It’s not due to AI.
It’s due to greed.
Real talk, is it worth even pursuing tech in the U.S anymore? At this point it went from a high paying career to most unstable in the span of a couple of months
AI is partially a smokescreen here. They’re laying off cause they can and they’re outsourcing as well.
But no doubt, that our kowtowing to the industry with incentives and lax regulation as well as Government support is damaging to the citizenry that funds the government itself.
Damn man….I feel awful for new grads of CS because this is depressing levels of layoffs. Reeks of 2009
“Cut due to AI”. Bullshit.
I’m still here after we cut a large number of people and AI ain’t replaced shit – they just engaged more offshoring. Ais being used to make layoffs look like a smart business decision when its the same short-sighted playbook that’s been going on for over a decade
Warren Buffet said the market is overvalued.
CEOs are using AI as an excuse
My company (a very very well known non FAANG company)s stock is better than it’s ever been and we are doing very well. Our ceo just announced to all of us like a psycho that if we don’t “learn to use ai” we are out of the jobs, full hiring freeze and cancellation of all of our external programs because “AI should be able to do it”. I feel like I’m living in an insane asylum. Everyone is pretending like this isn’t just another way to squeeze the stock and run a round of layoffs for no reason. AI is absolutely the excuse- when we are fired we will say we didn’t adapt well enough to a literally impossible thing
Yaaaaa. Work at a SaaS company. It’s good, but it’s not replacing people, good. It’s stalled out hiring in a lot of places as we figure out the effects on output, but not a single word about cutting some % of our workforce because we don’t need them anymore. That’s a straight up lie if anyone is touting it
What a joke.
My dad got laid off because a competitor bought their business just to shut it down. I’m sure they’re telling people they bought his company and shut it down because AI though, not because they’re evil bastards
Oh, right, AI. The thing everybody wants and trusts.
A guy who has a degree in art and is a hobbyst pilot tell us that the layoffs are from AI, and not from corporate greed, world crisis, tarifss, instabilities etc….
Sure buddy… sure, why you dont go back flying your plane?
Real glad I didn’t apply to the data privacy positions all those tech companies were recruiting for with a blank check
“blamed on AI” would be more accurate
actual correlation has yet to be proven
“AI”….. right
AI washed layoffs no doubt
Anyone who has used any LLM knows this can’t be because of AI. AI is not there yet. I use it almost daily, and it makes mistakes every single day. It’s a game of probability. No way is any company at a mature enough level with AI to let thousands go.
The pace of these layoffs is pretty concerning. It feels less like pure automation and more like companies restructuring around AI without a clear long term plan yet.
“Allegedly” cut due to AI. I can fire half my staff because my business is failing and I made poor investments, and then I can tell the news it was because of AI. And the news outlets will parrot exactly what I said with no criticism. And then it will get posted to Reddit and people will read the headline and believe whatever it says
lol yeah, the “due to ai” part always feels like the cleanest PR label they can stick on a messy layoff.
Donald Trump’s America. It’s only for the wealthy elite. The poors can fuck off and die.
the same way Oracle cut off 30000 jobs because of AI and not because of losing 50% of their stock 🙂
The title should be, because of AI costs
You can’t spell ‘fail’ without AI.
The layoffs and firings will continue until morale improves
It’s not even that their jobs were replaced by AI, just companies are dumping so much money in to AI speculation that they can’t afford employees. Really hope it backfires spectacularly
… almost 50% of affe ted positions cut CLAIMED to be due to AI
Important nuance.
Most companies on earth are still getting their minds around agentic tooling and workflows. There’s no way this is true in the sense of the world having transitioned firmly to AI obsoleting human development.
AI is the new “return to office” layoffs.
It’s not due to AI. They wanted to cut salaries and reboot.
I call bullshit, AI is not taking these jobs yet. They are just cutting overhead to raise stock price and cash out. Capitalism at its finest.
Is this not simply due to the over hiring during COVID?