- March 2026 was the worst month for layoffs since 2024
- Tech companies are cutting workforces to invest in AI
- Entry level jobs are shrinking, and other jobs could be next
March 2026 has been the worst month for tech job layoffs in the past two years, with over 38,000 employees now out of work.
According to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the majority of the layoffs in March come from Oracle, who slashed 30,000 jobs in March following a rocky end of year performance and a $300 million deal with OpenAI.
Atlassian also announced a cut of 1,600 jobs with a shift towards a new AI strategy, and Epic Games cut 1,000 jobs after experiencing an engagement drop with its hit game Fortnite.
The worst is yet to come
In March, Meta announced plans to cut 20% of its workforce, or around 16,000 employees, but have since confirmed a 10% reduction, or 8,000 employees, instead. Several other companies, including Microsoft, Block, Amazon, and eBay have all cut their workforces over the past few months.
Many companies are turning towards AI and automation to increase efficiency, productivity, and revenue. This comes with the unfortunate downside that some employees are therefore seen as superfluous, and their jobs cut.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, this does come with a caveat. Many companies are attempting to outspend each other on AI, which has become somewhat of an unofficial metric for a company's success. In order to foot the bill for new data centers and chips, jobs are usually the first to go.
More and more money gets spent, and more and more CEO’s have to justify that the investment in AI is sound, and is actually delivering the benefits it has promised. If not, cut more jobs and invest more in AI.
It could be argued that companies are simply compensating for the rapid overhiring that occurred following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the number of job openings has now fallen below its 2018 peak, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).
AI is already shrinking the job market for new graduates. In a 2025 interview with Axios, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs within the next five years. If the efficiency gains and productivity increases AI companies are promising come true, that could bite further into white collar jobs as a whole.
