The US tech industry laid off nearly 140k jobs in the first half of the year, and the full $725 billion in funding flowed entirely to AI data centers

In 2026, U.S. technology companies have laid off nearly 140k employees, with funds flowing to AI data centers; the scale of layoffs exceeds one-third of the total number of layoffs across the United States.
（Background: crypto wallet developer Exodus cuts 25% of staff）
（Additional context: Uber cuts its customer service department by another 10%; the reason given is to embrace AI）

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• The four major giants cut 50k positions in total
• Monday.com lays off 20%, GitLab cuts 14%
• Layoffs don’t disappear entirely—AI roles are expanding
• Layoffs vs investment: two sides of the same thing

The U.S. tech industry is currently going through a new round of layoffs this year. An analysis by the UK’s Financial Times on July 27 states that, over the first seven months of the year, U.S. tech companies have cut nearly 140k jobs, with the layoff scale accounting for more than one-third of the total number of layoffs nationwide.

Behind this wave of layoffs is massive AI investment. Ultra-large technology companies together have投入 about $725 billion in funding for building AI data centers.

The four major giants cut 50k positions

Among them, Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft jointly cut about 50k positions. As these companies announced the layoffs, they were also putting tens of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure.

Microsoft announced in early July that it would cut about 4,800 positions, most of them from the Xbox division. According to The Verge, this is the biggest organizational reshuffle for the Xbox division since Microsoft acquired Bethesda.

Oracle disclosed in June that it has already laid off 21,000 employees over the past year. Reuters reported that Oracle in SEC filings explicitly attributed the layoffs to accelerated AI adoption, which requires adjusting workforce structure.

Monday.com cuts 20%, GitLab cuts 14%

Monday.com, a work management software company that recently announced layoffs, said in a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it will cut about 20% of employees (more than 600 people) as part of a “reorganization plan” to support continued transformation of product, market promotion, and market entry strategy, resulting in a leaner, more focused operating model, and investing in an “AI-driven growth strategy.”

Version control platform GitLab also cut about 350 employees in June, accounting for more than 14% of its total headcount, and simultaneously exited the markets in 22 countries to concentrate resources on AI workloads.

Layoffs don’t disappear entirely—AI roles are expanding

The employees being laid off have not completely left the tech industry. Emerging AI companies are actively hiring these talents.

Anthropic and OpenAI, the two major AI model developers, are expanding hiring. According to Financial Times analysis, among the employees who were laid off, many have directly flowed into roles such as AI model training, data labeling, and MLOps engineers.

Some companies also carry out internal workforce redeployment rather than directly eliminating positions:

• Meta: After previously cutting 8,000 people, it also redeployed about 7,000 employees to AI-related roles, resulting in a net layoff of only 1,000
• IBM: It announced layoffs while also stating that foundational roles in the AI and hybrid cloud areas would double

Layoffs vs investment: two sides of the same thing

The Financial Times calls this phenomenon an “AI replacement loop”—tech companies save on payroll costs through layoffs, then reinvest the money into AI data centers and infrastructure, while using AI tools to improve the productivity of the remaining employees.

This model has become the new normal for tech giants: cutting non-core roles, investing in AI training and inference infrastructure, forming a closed loop of “layoffs—invest in AI—layoffs.”