Tech industry lays off nearly 80,000 employees in the first quarter of 2026 — almost 50% of affected positions cut due to AI

# Tech industry lays off nearly 80,000 employees in the first quarter of 2026 — almost 50% of affected positions cut... Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tech-industry-lays-off-nearly-80-000-employees-in-the-first-quarter-of-2026-almost-50-percent-of-affected-positions-cut-due-to-ai Oracle(Image credit: Getty / Justin Sullivan) 78,557 workers in the tech industry have reportedly been laid off from January 1 to April 2026, with more than 76% of the affected positions located in the U.S.*Nikkei Asia* (https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/artificial-intelligence/nearly-80-000-tech-jobs-cut-in-q1-but-ai-s-full-impact-may-be-yet-to-come) reports that 37,638 of these cuts, or 47.9%, have been attributed to the reduced need for human workers because of AI and workflow automation. Despite that, Cognizant Chief AI Officer Babak Hodjat says that it will still take more than a year before we completely see the impact of modern AI technologies on the workforce. “I don’t know if they are directly related to actual productivity gains,” Hodjat told*Nikkei* in reference to the job cuts. “Sometimes, you know, AI becomes the scapegoat from a financial perspective, like when a company hired too many, or they want to resize, and it gets blamed on AI.” Despite that, he said that AI-driven layoffs could still happen, but that it would take another six months to a year “before companies start seeing real productivity gains from AI,” and that “it will be painful for all of us as we’re going through it, and simply because it’s a transition.” Article continues below Despite all these analyses, some experts are pushing back against this narrative, pointing out that AI-driven layoffs were just being used as an excuse for poor business performance (https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/claimed-1-100-percent-increase-in-ai-driven-layoffs-in-2025-might-be-misleading-firms-accused-of-exaggerating-ai-performance-to-downplay-poor-business-performance). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during theIndia AI Impact Summit (https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/openais-sam-altman-warns-that-firms-are-using-ai-washing-to-mask-layoffs-across-the-globe-ai-boss-calls-out-corporate-excuses-while-warning-of-palpable-job-disruption-ahead), “I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs.” While they say that some of these layoffs would still happen with or without AI, there’s still a consensus that the technology would have an impact on jobs and that we should be ready for a disruption. "There's going to be a ton of people that are coming out of school that can't find a job and don't have the domain expertise,” Hodjat told*Nikkei*. “You have to bring them in. You have to have them learn on the job, on how to use AI within the various domains.” Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Google Preferred Source (https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLAgKIiZDQklTRmdnTWFoSUtFSFJ2YlhOb1lYSmtkMkZ5WlM1amIyMG9BQVAB)*Follow**Tom's Hardware on Google News* (https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLAgKIiZDQklTRmdnTWFoSUtFSFJ2YlhOb1lYSmtkMkZ5WlM1amIyMG9BQVAB)*, or**add us as a preferred source* (https://google.com/preferences/source?q=)*, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.* Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.