Layoffs in the tech sector slowed down year-over-year during 2024 and 2025, but they appear to be picking up the pace in 2026, with more than 26,000 employees let go so far, according to the tracker Layoffs.fyi.
Artificial intelligence was not indicated as the culprit behind most of the staff reductions. Instead, multiple companies planning large-scale layoffs attributed the plans to reducing bureaucracy.
The bulk of the layoffs can be attributed to a single company: Amazon (AMZN). The tech and e-commerce giant announced a plan in late January to slash its workforce by 16,000.
“We’ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” said Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology.
To put things in perspective, Amazon’s workforce totals more than 1.5M employees.
The next largest layoff occurred at ASML (ASML), which announced in late January it planned to lay off 1,700 employees. The semiconductor equipment manufacturer said most of the layoffs would occur in the Netherlands, where it is headquartered, and some in its U.S. offices.
“In the Technology organization, we are proposing to shift from a project/matrix setup to one where most of our engineers will be dedicated to a specific product and module,” said a letter from ASML’s board of management to its employees. “This will allow us to simplify processes and decision-making … As a result of these proposed changes, some roles—mainly at the leadership level—may no longer be required. At the same time, to retain our engineering capability, we will create new engineering jobs to strengthen existing technology projects and embark on new ones to support our own and our customers’ growth plans.”
Meanwhile, Ericsson (ERIC) revealed plans to reduce its workforce by about 1,600 in mid-January. Most of those affected are based in Sweden, where Ericsson is headquartered.
“The proposed staff reduction is part of global initiatives to improve cost position while maintaining investments critical to Ericsson’s technology leadership and the execution of the strategy to deliver high-performing, programmable networks that enable differentiated services and new monetization opportunities,” the telecommunications firm said.
Also in January, Autodesk (ADSK) said it would reduce its workforce by 7%, or about 1,000 employees.
Earlier this month, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) quickly laid off about 10% of the workforce of its newly acquired Israel-based CyberArk. These reductions were mostly related to restructuring and removing redundancy while combining the two companies’ sales, operational, and administrative services, according to the Calcalist.