US Tech Layoffs Hit 94,046 Through August, Up 16.8%

U.S. tech companies cut at least 94,046 jobs from January through August 2026, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the same period of 2025, according to Crunchbase's Tech Layoff Tracker. Artificial intelligence sits at the center of the shift.

The cuts came in sharp bursts rather than a steady stream. After layoffs dropped to 5,151 in December 2025, they surged past 20,000 in January. May was the year's cruelest month: 31,513 job cuts, including Meta's 8,000-person reduction — the highest monthly total since March 2023, when 36,602 jobs were lost.

The pace has since cooled. Layoffs fell every month after May, landing at 2,347 in August. June through August totaled 19,331, down 16.2% year over year. That easing is real, but Crunchbase cautions it is too early to call a lasting reversal.

AI takes the blame

AI has become a far more common explanation for job cuts, said Roger Lee, founder of Layoffs.fyi. Companies cited AI in 33% of tech layoff events this year, up from just 1% in 2024. His tracker attributes 92,913 layoffs globally — 72% of this year's total — to AI.

"There's been little evidence that AI is actually replacing the work of the human employees let go," Lee said. In his reading, established tech companies are spending heavily on AI while cutting costs elsewhere, betting on higher productivity from smaller workforces.

Big companies drive the numbers

Public tech companies dominated layoff headlines again in 2026, 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 said.

Amazon accounted for 17,388 cuts through August, including a 16,000-worker reduction-in-force announced in January plus several smaller rounds. Meta followed with 10,400 layoffs, of which the May cut of 8,000 jobs represented 10% of its workforce.

Microsoft and PayPal posted the next-largest totals, letting go of 4,800 and 4,760 employees respectively. Block, Cisco and Cognizant each cut 4,000, followed by Intuit with 3,000, Amdocs with 2,900 and Visa with 2,600. The top ten spans cloud computing, social media, payments and enterprise technology.

Oracle's workforce reportedly fell by about 21,000 in its fiscal year ended May 31, 2026, but Crunchbase excluded that figure from the tracker because the exact timing and worker counts for the reported cuts were unclear.

Among privately held companies, Epic Games recorded the largest disclosed total at 1,000, followed by HR software provider UKG with 950 and MyHeritage with 500. Those figures are substantially smaller than the largest public-company reductions, though undisclosed layoff counts limit comparisons. In early September, Uber reportedly laid off 3,300 workers, or 10% of its workforce.

Reallocation, not just replacement

Andrew Challenger of Challenger, Gray & Christmas sees AI hitting jobs in two ways. Some work, including coding, now requires fewer people. "There are jobs that are literally being replaced by artificial intelligence," he told Crunchbase News.

Companies are also reprioritizing, funding AI while trimming other teams. "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 said. That explains why a company can lay people off and advertise new roles at the same time.

Tech has announced more job cuts than any other U.S. industry this year, Challenger said. Across the wider economy, layoffs are down somewhat from 2025 — though that comparison is skewed by last year's large federal job cuts — and remain elevated compared with the immediate post-pandemic period. Outside tech, few companies have blamed job cuts on AI.

Challenger sees potential upside for programmers: if AI makes software cheaper to build, companies in other industries might start projects they could not previously afford, creating jobs outside tech. Whether those roles will offset the cuts remains unknown.

There are also signs of second thoughts. Amazon is reaching out to eligible former employees about open roles across the company, including in its cloud-computing and AI businesses, according to a Business Insider report.

Crunchbase notes its tracker records only reported cuts at U.S. tech employers, updated at least bi-weekly. Actual figures are likely much higher, as many companies do not disclose job counts when announcing layoffs. The question for the rest of 2026 is whether the summer slowdown holds once AI budgets come due.