Tech layoffs in 2026 have already passed the whole of 2025. Layoffs.fyi counts 131,382 tech workers cut at 314 companies so far this year, against 122,606 in all of 2025. Hiring demand is recovering at the same time: CompTIA counted 625,633 active IT job postings in September 2026, the most in over three years, and 349,821 of them asked for AI skills. Software development postings on Indeed are still about 23% below their pre pandemic level. AI skills carry a pay premium of 18% to 62% depending on the source, and entry level hiring is the weakest part of the market.
Data as of early October 2026. Sources: Layoffs.fyi, TrueUp, Crunchbase, Challenger, Indeed Hiring Lab, CompTIA, Dice, PwC, Lightcast, Levels.fyi, BLS, Stanford Digital Economy Lab and SignalFire. Updated October 2026.
The tech job market in 2026 is two markets running side by side. Big companies are cutting jobs at the fastest pace since 2023. Employers across the wider economy are posting more tech jobs than at any point in three years. This page puts the numbers for both in one place, for recruiters, staffing agency owners and HR teams.
How many tech layoffs have there been in 2026 so far?
According to the Layoffs.fyi tracker, 131,382 tech employees have been laid off across 314 companies so far in 2026. That count was reported by the Indian Express on October 8, 2026.
That already beats the full year 2025 total of 122,606 tech workers at 278 companies, as posted by Layoffs.fyi on X. 2026 passed the 2025 total in about eight months.
2026 is still below the 2023 peak. A year by year tally from Value Add VC, built on Layoffs.fyi data, puts 2022 at 164,969 and 2023 at 262,682. TechTarget cites Layoffs.fyi at 152,922 for 2024.
Why do the layoff trackers disagree so much?
Each tracker counts a different thing. Layoffs.fyi only logs layoffs at tech companies that are reported in the media or confirmed. TrueUp casts a wider net, Crunchbase only counts US tech employers, and Challenger counts announced cuts at US employers in its tech industry bucket.
| Tracker | 2026 count | Period | 2025 comparison | What it counts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Layoffs.fyi | 131,382 people, 314 companies | Jan 1 to early Oct | 122,606 people, 278 companies | Verified tech company layoffs worldwide |
| TrueUp tracker | 191,518 people, 633 layoffs | Jan 1 to Oct 6 | 245,953 people, 783 layoffs | Tech companies and startups, broader coverage |
| SkillSyncer tracker | 225,122 people, 519 events | Jan 1 to Oct 8 | 205,773 people, 338 events | Tech layoff events, includes Oracle at 30,000 |
| Challenger via Computerworld | 165,925 job cuts | Jan to Sep | Up 54% on same period | Announced cuts by US tech employers |
| Crunchbase News | 94,046 job cuts | Jan to Aug | 80,486 (up 16.8%) | US tech employers only, excludes Oracle |
The biggest swing factor is Oracle. Layoffs.fyi records 21,000 Oracle cuts, SkillSyncer logs a single 30,000 event on March 31, and Crunchbase leaves Oracle out because the count and timing were unclear.
Which companies made the biggest tech layoffs in 2026?
Big companies dominate. Layoffs.fyi founder Roger Lee told Crunchbase News that large companies make up about 87% of everyone laid off in 2026. The table below uses Layoffs.fyi company totals as reported by Business Standard on September 11, 2026, unless noted.
| Company | 2026 layoffs | Main date | Stated or reported reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle | 21,000 | Announced June (about 13% of staff) | Restructuring plan while spending on cloud and AI data centres |
| Amazon | 17,267 | 16,000 in January, plus four smaller rounds | Cost cutting while raising AI infrastructure spend |
| Dell | 11,000 | March | Workforce reduction (no reason given in our sources) |
| Meta | 10,400 | 8,000 in May (10% of staff) | Moved 7,000 other workers to AI initiatives |
| Microsoft | 4,800 | July (Xbox lost one fifth of staff) | Restructuring |
| PayPal | 4,760 | Through the year | Multi year turnaround and cost savings plan |
| Block and Cisco | 4,000 each | Through August (Crunchbase) | Cisco cut while posting record revenue (SignalFire) |
| Uber | 3,300 | Early September (about 10%) | Fewer management layers; not framed as AI |
How many 2026 tech layoffs are blamed on AI?
More than in any prior year. Lee told Crunchbase that AI was cited in 33% of tech layoff events in 2026, up from 1% in 2024, and that his tracker attributes 92,913 layoffs, or 72% of the year’s total, to AI.
Across all US industries, Challenger counted 120,136 job cuts citing AI in 2026 through September, 21% of all cuts, per Computerworld. In September alone AI was cited for only 9% of cuts. Lee also said there has been little evidence that AI is actually doing the work of the people let go.
Are tech job postings going up or down in 2026?
Up, from a low base. CompTIA reported 272,040 new IT job postings in September 2026 and 625,633 active postings, the highest total in more than three years, according to its CompTIA Tech Jobs Report. New postings rose 16% and active postings 22.4% year over year.
Software developers and engineers were the most sought after role, with 47,598 new openings in September, up 8.3% from August. Sixteen of the 20 industries CompTIA tracks posted more tech jobs month over month.
Dice sees the same trend. Its September Dice report shows tech postings up 9% month over month and 17% year over year, with AI and machine learning postings up 88% year over year.
How far below pre pandemic are software developer postings?
About 23% below. Indeed’s software development postings index stood near 77 in data through September 11, 2026, where February 2020 equals 100, according to Investopedia’s Indeed analysis. The August Hiring Lab snapshot had it at 74.4, up from a low of 61.1 in May 2025.
All postings on Indeed are now slightly above the baseline. The overall index hit 103.5 on September 18, 2026, and posted its first positive annual change in almost four years, per the September Hiring Lab snapshot.
The rebound is lopsided. Indeed Hiring Lab found that 71% of the increase in software development postings between May 2025 and May 2026 came from senior roles, and 37% came from jobs with AI in the title.
What is the tech unemployment rate right now?
3.3% in September 2026, up from 3.1% in August, against a national rate of 4.2%, according to CompTIA’s read of the BLS jobs report. More than seven million people work in tech occupations.
Employment moved the other way from postings. CompTIA estimates the tech sector lost 10,350 jobs in September, and tech occupations across all industries lost about 6,000. For the wider picture, compare job openings vs hires across sectors.
How much more do AI skills pay in tech?
Somewhere between 18% and 62%, depending on who measures it and how. The spread is wide because each source compares different groups.
| Source | AI pay premium | Data year | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| PwC AI Jobs Barometer | 62% (up from 57%) | Released June 2026 | Over one billion job ads in 27 countries, all sectors |
| Lightcast report | 28%, nearly $18,000 a year | Released July 2025 | 1.3 billion postings with versus without AI skills |
| Levels.fyi data | 27.4% (Work Insiders estimate) | October 2026 | Self reported total pay, ML and AI engineers vs all software engineers |
| Dice salary report | Almost 18% | 2024 survey | 2,835 US tech professionals surveyed |
The Levels.fyi figure is our own arithmetic. The US median total pay for ML and AI software engineers is $250,000, and for all software engineers it is $196,250 (updated October 7, 2026). $250,000 divided by $196,250 is 1.274, so a 27.4% premium.
Titles matter. The Levels.fyi median for the job title “AI Engineer” is only $160,000, below the software engineer median, because that title is used widely at smaller and non tech employers. For a deeper breakdown, see our AI engineer salary guide.
PwC’s number is the highest because it averages across all sectors, including some where AI skills are rare. PwC says the premium reaches 118% in consumer markets and is 16% in government. Inside tech, where AI skills are common, the gap is narrower.
What do computer and IT jobs pay according to BLS?
The median annual wage for computer and IT occupations was $109,470 in May 2025, against $50,980 for all occupations, according to the BLS Occupational Outlook. BLS projects about 280,000 openings a year in the group from 2025 to 2035.
Advertised pay is lower. Dice puts the 2025 average advertised tech salary at $126,848, up $6,656 from 2024, in its Dice sentiment report. That is a median of employer posted pay, not what people earn.
Which tech roles are hiring and which are shrinking?
Security, data science, AI and research roles are growing. Programmers, support desks and system admins are shrinking. The BLS columns are 2025 employment, May 2025 median pay and the projected change from 2025 to 2035.
| Role | Jobs 2025 | Median pay | BLS outlook to 2035 | Recent demand signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data scientists | 275,600 | $120,230 | Growing 35% | ML engineer postings up 52% in 2025 (Dice) |
| Computer research scientists | 38,600 | $140,300 | Growing 22% | Research engineer share up 28% (SignalFire) |
| Information security analysts | 192,900 | $129,180 | Growing 21% | Security architects among fastest growing titles, Sep 2026 (Dice) |
| Software developers, QA, testers | 1,905,400 | $134,040 | Growing 10% | Top role by new openings, 47,598 in Sep 2026 (CompTIA) |
| Web developers and designers | 220,100 | $99,520 | Growing 5% | Front end engineer share down about 25% (SignalFire) |
| Computer support specialists | 903,100 | $62,890 | Shrinking 3% | Support roles named among most exposed to AI |
| Network and systems admins | 323,600 | $99,130 | Shrinking 4% | No 2026 signal in our sources |
| Computer programmers | 110,800 | $100,390 | Shrinking 7% | Java developer postings down 4% (Dice) |
Outside engineering, the cuts are deeper. SignalFire’s 2026 talent report finds hiring at the 12 largest tech companies is down 48% for design, 39% for product management and 36% for marketing compared with 2019, while engineering hiring is down only 11%.
AI titles are where the growth is. In the Dice sentiment report, AI engineer postings grew 208% in 2025, while software development engineer postings fell 16% and business systems analyst postings fell 10%.
Is it harder for new grads to get a tech job in 2026?
Yes. SignalFire reports new grad and entry level hiring is down roughly 65% at the 12 largest tech companies and about 76% at early stage startups compared with 2019. Overall hiring at those large companies is 25% below 2019.
Payroll data shows the same thing. The Stanford Digital Economy Lab paper, revised August 12, 2026 with ADP data through June 2026, finds employment of workers aged 22 to 25 in AI exposed occupations is 19% below where it would be had it kept pace with less exposed peers. Experienced workers show no such gap.
The Stanford authors say the gap comes mostly from companies hiring fewer young workers, not from firing more of them. Recent college graduates face a 5.7% unemployment rate, per New York Fed data cited by Investopedia.
Are any entry level tech roles growing?
Some are. PwC found that AI exposed entry level roles in the US that ask for more senior skills, such as judgement and leadership, have grown 35% since 2019, while other entry level roles shrank 10%.
What does the 2026 tech job market mean for recruiters?
There are more candidates and they are more anxious. Dice found 55% of tech professionals were actively job searching, up from 39% in 2024, yet only 41% felt confident of finding a better role. Expect high response rates and harder closes.
Senior AI talent is still scarce. Postings are growing fastest for senior and AI titled roles, so expect long searches and pay negotiations on those briefs. ManpowerGroup told Computerworld that engineer roles typically take 77 days to fill. Benchmark your own time to hire before you set client expectations.
Job seekers are wary of ads. Eight in ten tech professionals in the Dice survey believe they applied to a ghost job in the past year. Clear, real job ads with pay ranges stand out. Our ghost jobs data covers this in depth.
Rethink junior pipelines with clients. If a client has frozen graduate hiring, a strong new grad who can show shipped work and fluent AI use is now a niche placement with little competition. Check any AI screening you use with our AI hiring law checker.
Track the numbers monthly. Our Staffing Market Brief covers the new CompTIA and BLS data each month, and the labor market trackers list links to every source on this page.
How we built this page
We pulled every figure from the source page or from a news report that quotes it, checked in the first week of October 2026. Layoffs.fyi loads its live counts in a way we could not read directly, so the 2026 and 2025 counts come from reports quoting Layoffs.fyi on October 8, 2026 and from its own post on X.
Posting data comes from CompTIA (September 2026), Dice (September 2026) and Indeed Hiring Lab (August and September 2026). Pay and employment come from BLS (May 2025 wages, 2025 to 2035 projections) and Levels.fyi (October 2026). The Levels.fyi premium is a Work Insiders estimate, with the arithmetic shown above. Trackers count different things, so we show them side by side rather than picking one.
Quick answers
How many tech workers were laid off in 2026?
Layoffs.fyi counts 131,382 tech employees at 314 companies as of October 8, 2026. TrueUp counts 191,518 people because it covers more companies.
Are tech layoffs worse in 2026 than in 2025?
Yes. 2026 passed the full 2025 Layoffs.fyi total of 122,606 within about eight months. It is still well below the 2023 peak of about 262,682.
Which company had the most tech layoffs in 2026?
Oracle, with 21,000 on Layoffs.fyi, followed by Amazon at 17,267, Dell at 11,000 and Meta at 10,400.
What is the tech unemployment rate in 2026?
3.3% in September 2026, per CompTIA, below the national rate of 4.2%.
Are software engineering jobs coming back?
Slowly. Indeed’s software development postings index is about 77, up from 61.1 in May 2025 but still about 23% below February 2020. Most of the growth is in senior and AI roles.
How much more do AI skills pay?
PwC puts the premium at 62% across all sectors, Lightcast at 28%, Dice at almost 18%. On Levels.fyi, ML and AI engineers earn about 27% more total pay than the median software engineer.
How many tech jobs ask for AI skills?
CompTIA counted 349,821 active US job postings requiring AI skills in September 2026, up about 282% since May 2024.
Is entry level tech hiring down?
Yes. SignalFire puts new grad hiring at big tech down about 65% from 2019, and Stanford finds employment of 22 to 25 year olds in AI exposed jobs 19% below trend.
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