150,000 Tech Workers Laid Off in 2026 as Profitable Companies Cite AI
By mid-June 2026, approximately 150,000 tech workers had been laid off across 363 separate events, averaging roughly 974 job cuts per day, with AI cited as the primary driver for three consecutive months. Unlike previous downturn-driven layoff cycles, many of the companies making cuts — including Oracle, Meta, Microsoft, Block, and Cloudflare — simultaneously reported record revenues or growing profits. Cloudflare cut 20% of its workforce on the same earnings call it announced record quarterly revenue of $639.8 million, while Block shed 40% of staff the quarter it posted $2.87 billion in gross profit. Tech leaders including Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella have claimed that AI now generates a significant share of their companies' code, though critics argue that lines-of-code metrics obscure how much human judgment still drives software development. Analysts note that companies selling AI products have the strongest incentive to promote narratives of AI replacing workers, while firms dependent on engineering talent or AI hardware have offered more cautious assessments.
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