Layoffs roll on, AI cited
Social posts show large tech layoffs continuing, with a recent tally naming major cuts at Oracle, Amazon, Block and others across the last three months. One thread counted more than 60,000 job losses in that span and another said Q1 saw roughly 80,000 cuts with about half attributed to AI-related restructuring (Dmitrii Kovanikov) (x.com) (ByteCrafter) (x.com).
Tech layoffs are still piling up in 2026, with one live tracker showing 71,447 jobs cut across 80 tech companies as of April 16. (layoffs.fyi) Another tracker put the 2026 total even higher, at 93,833 people affected across 237 layoff events by April 16. The gap reflects different methods, but both counts show cuts continuing well into the second quarter. (trueup.io) Amazon said on January 28 that it would eliminate about 16,000 roles across the company. The company said the cuts were part of an effort to reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy after an earlier round in October 2025. (aboutamazon.com) CNBC reported that those two Amazon rounds totaled about 30,000 jobs in three months, or roughly 10% of the company’s corporate and tech workforce of about 350,000. Amazon said it was not trying to create “a new rhythm” of broad layoffs every few months. (cnbc.com) At Block, Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced on February 26 that the company was cutting more than 4,000 employees, taking headcount from above 10,000 to just under 6,000. TechCrunch reported that Block finance chief Amrita Ahuja said the cuts would help the company move faster with smaller teams using artificial intelligence to automate more work. (techcrunch.com) Oracle also began cutting jobs in late March. CNBC reported on March 31 that the reductions were in the thousands as Oracle increased spending on data centers for artificial intelligence workloads; Oracle had about 162,000 full-time employees as of May 31, 2025. (cnbc.com) (oracle.com) The broader labor data points in the same direction. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said United States employers announced 60,620 job cuts in March, up 25% from February, and technology companies led industries with 18,720 announced cuts that month. (challengergray.com) Challenger said technology companies announced more than 52,000 job cuts in the first quarter, the highest first-quarter total for the sector since 2023. The firm also said artificial intelligence accounted for one-quarter of all layoff announcements across industries in March. (challengergray.com) Companies are not giving one explanation for every cut. Challenger said employers also cited closings, restructurings, and market and economic conditions, even as Bloomberg reported that Meta, Oracle, and Block were among the companies redirecting resources toward artificial intelligence. (challengergray.com) (bloomberg.com) The pattern now looks less like a single cleanup after the pandemic hiring boom and more like a rolling reset in how large tech companies staff engineering, management, and support work. For workers, April 2026 has brought the same message as January: the cuts have not stopped. (cnbc.com) (bloomberg.com)
