Just over three months into 2026, the global technology sector is already showing signs that workforce reductions are not slowing down. Roughly 45,363 tech employees have been laid off worldwide since January, placing the industry on a trajectory that could easily surpass last year’s totals if the current pace continues.
The wave of redundancies follows several years of post-pandemic correction, during which nearly a million tech jobs were eliminated globally. What began as a pullback from pandemic-era overexpansion has evolved into a structural shift in how technology companies operate. In 2025, automation, artificial intelligence integration, and sustained cost-discipline measures drove much of the downsizing, with entire departments restructured or eliminated in favour of leaner, AI-assisted workflows.
This trend has continued in full steam into 2026. To better understand it, the team at RationalFX investigated the wave of layoffs in the technology sector, analysing the number of job cuts that have occurred throughout 2026. Based on figures from several sources, including TrueUp, TechCrunch, and multiple state WARN databases, we identified the companies with the most significant workforce reductions since the start of the year.
The Countries Most Affected By Tech Layoffs
Since the start of the year, tech companies have announced 45,363 job cuts worldwide, with 30,846, roughly 68% of the global total, occurring in the United States. These reductions span 43 U.S.-based companies, with the largest cuts coming from e‑commerce and technology giant Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, and fintech and payments provider Block.
Australia has seen 2,650 layoffs so far in 2026, stemming from just two companies: Sydney-based WiseTech Global, which cut 2,000 jobs, and Melbourne telecommunications firm Telstra, with 650 roles affected since the start of the year. While the overall scale of layoffs in Australia does not match that of the United States, the concentration of cuts within a small number of major firms highlights a significant regional impact.
Europe accounts for a smaller but significant share of layoffs, with Sweden (1,923), the Netherlands (1,700), the UK (1,000), the Czech Republic (250) and Germany (200), among the most affected countries. The region’s layoffs are concentrated in telecom, semiconductor, and gaming sectors, reflecting structural shifts in traditional European tech hubs.
Asia has seen 4,595 layoffs across several countries, with the largest numbers coming from Israel (1,539), India (1,520), and Singapore (1,016). The cuts span AI startups, e‑commerce platforms, cybersecurity firms, and electric mobility companies. Notably, AI and automation-related layoffs make up a significant portion of the region’s cuts, particularly in Israel and Singapore, highlighting the structural transformation in tech workflows.
Amazon Leads Tech Layoffs By a Huge Margin
After cutting nearly 20,000 roles in 2025, the second-largest total among tech companies that year, the e-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon has announced a further 16,000 job reductions in 2026, one of the largest single workforce cuts in its history, following 14,000 redundancies in October 2025. Company management cited efforts to streamline reporting, accelerate decisions, and boost efficiency. Yet these cuts come amid record revenues of $716.9 billion in 2025 (up 12% year-on-year, with explosive AWS growth) and massive ongoing investments in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, including a projected $200 billion in capital expenditure for 2026 alone.
Financial technology company Block Inc. has announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs in 2026, representing a substantial portion of its workforce as part of a sweeping restructuring effort. Led by co-founder Jack Dorsey, the company said the reductions are intended to flatten management structures, eliminate overlapping roles and improve operational efficiency. The move follows earlier workforce reductions in recent years, underscoring Block’s continued efforts to control costs while investing in new areas such as Bitcoin-related products and internal artificial intelligence tools.
Semiconductor and sensor manufacturer ams OSRAM also plans to cut around 2,000 jobs as part of a broader restructuring programme aimed at improving profitability and streamlining operations. The Austria-based group has been under pressure to reduce costs following weaker demand in some segments of the semiconductor market, prompting a series of efficiency measures across its global operations.
Australia’s largest technology layoffs come from logistics software developer WiseTech Global, which has confirmed 2,000 layoffs as part of a major restructuring. The Sydney-based company said the reductions are intended to simplify its organisational structure and sharpen its focus on core logistics software products as it continues expanding internationally.
Sweden-based telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson has moved forward with a significant workforce reduction in early 2026, announcing plans to cut approximately 1,900 jobs, the bulk of which stem from a proposed reduction of around 1,600 positions in its home market as part of broader cost-efficiency measures. The company, which said it had begun formal consultations with Swedish trade unions and notified the Swedish Public Employment Service, framed the cuts as necessary to strengthen its competitive position amid a sluggish global 5G market and intensifying industry competition.
Dutch semiconductor parts maker ASML announced plans to cut around 1,700 jobs in early 2026, even as it rode a wave of strong demand for advanced chipmaking systems and reported record sales and profits in 2025. The reductions, roughly 4% of its global workforce, are focused primarily on management, technology, and IT roles in the Netherlands and, to a lesser extent, the United States, and are part of a broader effort to simplify the company’s organisational structure and sharpen its engineering focus.
Social media and technology giant Meta cut approximately 1,500 jobs in early 2026, affecting 10% of its Reality Labs division, the unit tasked with building virtual reality headsets, Horizon Worlds, and other metaverse‑related projects. This is the first major workforce reduction at Meta this year and comes as the company pivots away from costly metaverse investments toward higher‑priority areas like artificial intelligence, following years of heavy losses in Reality Labs. Meta executives, including CTO Andrew Bosworth, have framed the layoffs as part of a broader effort to streamline operations and reallocate capital to products with stronger market traction, even as the company continues to back long‑term augmented‑reality ambitions.
AI Layoffs Intensify in 2026
Artificial intelligence and automation are increasingly cited as factors behind workforce reductions across the technology sector. In total, 9,238 layoffs in 2026 so far have been linked directly to AI adoption, automation, or organisational restructuring tied to these technologies. Many companies implementing layoffs have framed the cuts as part of broader shifts toward AI-assisted operations, where fewer employees are required to manage increasingly automated workflows.
The largest AI-related workforce reduction so far this year comes from financial technology company Block, which has eliminated 4,000 roles as part of a restructuring effort aimed at streamlining operations and expanding internal AI tools. Logistics software firm WiseTech Global follows with 2,000 layoffs after announcing a major restructuring aimed at increasing automation across its logistics platforms. E-commerce platform eBay has also cut 800 roles, with leadership emphasising greater efficiency through automation and AI-driven product development. Social media platform Pinterest announced 675 layoffs, citing the need to operate more efficiently while continuing to invest heavily in AI-powered advertising and content discovery tools.
Several other companies have carried out smaller but notable reductions tied to similar transitions. Singapore-based home design platform Livspace has cut 1,000 positions as it shifts toward more automated design and operations systems, while enterprise software giant Oracle has reduced 254 roles amid broader efforts to integrate AI across its cloud infrastructure and database services. Smaller reductions have also been reported at companies such as MercadoLibre, ANGI Homeservices, and Foretellix, highlighting how the transition toward AI-enabled operations is affecting companies of all sizes across multiple continents. Together, these layoffs reflect a growing shift within the technology sector, where companies are increasingly restructuring workforces to prioritise AI development while slashing roles that are now considered easily automated.
Washington Surpasses California as the Epicentre of Global Workforce Reductions in 2026
In 2026, several U.S. cities stand out as the headquarters of the largest contributors to global tech layoffs. Seattle, home to technology giants Amazon and Microsoft, tops the list with 16,590 employees affected worldwide, followed by San Francisco, with 9,395 layoffs, and Menlo Park, home to Meta Platforms, with 1,500 reductions.
Outside the United States, Sydney ranks among the cities most affected by tech layoffs after logistics software developer WiseTech Global eliminated 2,000 positions as part of a sweeping restructuring programme. The reductions account for the vast majority of Australia’s tech layoffs so far this year, placing Sydney among the global tech hubs most impacted by the sector’s early-2026 downsizing.
Across Europe, three major technology hubs also feature prominently. Stockholm, home to telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson, accounts for 1,900 layoffs. The Dutch town of Veldhoven, headquarters of semiconductor equipment leader ASML, has seen 1,700 roles cut. The Austrian town of Premstätten, with a population of just 7,081, has also found itself on the global tech-layoff map in 2026 after semiconductor manufacturer ams OSRAM announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs. While the absolute numbers remain smaller than those recorded in the United States, the figures illustrate how restructuring at some of Europe’s largest technology firms is also reshaping local employment landscapes.
The State of the Tech Industry in Early 2026
The tech sector continues to navigate the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted more than a million tech employees around the world since 2021. The first month of 2026 has already seen a surge in layoffs, and based on current trends, if job cuts continue at the same intensity, total reductions could reach 264,730 by year-end, surpassing 2025’s 245,000 layoffs.
A key driver behind many of these reductions remains the growing integration of artificial intelligence and automation. Companies are increasingly restructuring teams and workflows around AI-assisted systems, often reducing headcount in areas where tasks can be automated or handled more efficiently with new tools. While earlier rounds of layoffs tended to focus on operational and support roles, more recent cuts indicate that the shift is affecting a broader range of positions, including specialised and senior roles as organisations reorganise around AI-first strategies.
At the same time, employers are placing greater emphasis on AI-related expertise when hiring or evaluating staff. Many companies have attempted to soften the impact of layoffs through reskilling programmes and internal redeployment, but executives across the industry have increasingly questioned whether these approaches can keep pace with the speed of technological change. As 2026 progresses, the trajectory of layoffs will likely depend on how quickly companies transition toward AI-driven operations, and whether the technology ultimately leads to the creation of new roles as quickly as it eliminates existing ones.
Methodology
For this report, the team at RationalFX examined all of the reported tech company layoffs since the beginning of 2025, sourced from the IT job portal TrueUp.io. We also searched through additional sources, including TechCrunch, Layoffs.fyi, and several WARN databases. These are publicly available announcements providing advance notice in cases of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs as required by the U.S. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
Layoff figures were first aggregated at the company level to determine the total job cuts per firm. Next, companies were classified by their country of headquarters, providing insight into the geographic distribution of layoffs. To highlight the most significant workforce reductions, firms were ranked by the number of jobs eliminated, while countries were ranked based on the total layoffs reported by companies operating within them.