- March 2026 was the worst month in terms of layoffs since 2024
- Tech companies are cutting staff to invest in AI
- Entry-level jobs are shrinking, and other jobs could be next
March 2026 has been the worst month for job layoffs in the technology sector in the last two years, with more than 38,000 employees out of work.
According to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the majority of layoffs in March came from Oracle, which cut 30,000 jobs in March following a rocky year-end performance and a $300 million deal with OpenAI.
Atlassian also announced a 1,600 job cut with a shift toward a new AI strategy, and Epic Games cut 1,000 jobs after experiencing a drop in engagement with its hit game Fortnite.
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The worst is yet to come
In March, Meta announced plans to cut 20% of its workforce, or around 16,000 employees, but has since confirmed a 10% reduction, or 8,000 employees. Several other companies, including Microsoft, Block, Amazon and eBay, have cut their workforces in recent months.
Many companies are turning to artificial intelligence and automation to increase efficiency, productivity and revenue. This has the unfortunate drawback that some employees are seen as redundant and their jobs are eliminated.
like him Wall Street Journal Reports, this comes with a warning. Many companies are trying to outspend others on AI, which has become something of an unofficial metric of a company’s success. In order to foot the bill for new data centers and chips, jobs are often the first to go.
More and more money is being spent, and more and more CEOs are having to justify that the investment in AI is sound and is actually generating the promised benefits. Otherwise, we will eliminate more jobs and invest more in AI.
One could argue 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 U.S. 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 AI could wipe out half of all entry-level management jobs in the next five years. If the efficiency and productivity improvements that AI companies promise come true, that could further impact white-collar jobs as a whole.
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