Global tech layoffs have accelerated sharply in early 2026, with more than 70,000 employees losing their jobs across 80 companies in just the first three months of the year, according to data compiled
by layoffs.fyi. The trend underscores continued restructuring in the technology sector.
Among the latest cuts, Oracle, Meta and GoPro have been the latest companies to announce layoffs, due to a mix of cost rationalisation, restructuring and shifting business priorities.
Oracle leads the layoffs wave with the largest workforce reduction so far this year. The company has reportedly cut around 30,000 jobs in March alone, marking one of the biggest single-company layoffs in recent years. The move is seen as part of a broader restructuring strategy as Oracle sharpens its focus on cloud infrastructure and enterprise services while trimming legacy operations.
Meta has also joined the list, laying off around 200 employees in April. While significantly smaller in scale compared to its earlier mass layoffs in 2023-24, the latest cuts suggest continued fine-tuning of teams as the company reallocates resources toward artificial intelligence and metaverse-related investments.
Consumer-focused firms are not immune either. GoPro laid off about 145 employees, accounting for nearly 23% of its workforce. The action signals pressure on hardware companies facing weak demand, rising competition and margin challenges.
The layoffs are spread across sectors including consumer tech, finance, AI, enterprise software and media. According to layoffs.fyi, companies such as Pendo, Bolt, Epic Games and Zendesk have also announced job cuts, indicating that the trend is broad-based rather than limited to a few segments.
Geographically, the layoffs remain concentrated in global tech hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Bengaluru.
The scale of layoffs in early 2026 comes after a difficult 2025, when 271 tech companies laid off 1,24,201 employees. While the pace this year appears slightly moderated compared to the peak years of 2022-23, the persistence of job cuts indicates that the sector is still undergoing structural adjustments.
Has Amazon Also Announced Layoffs?
Amazon has denied recent reports suggesting a fresh round of job cuts in May 2026, calling the claims “false and not based in fact”, according to a company spokesperson.
The clarification comes after speculation that the company was planning to lay off around 14,000 employees as part of a restructuring exercise. These claims, which originated on the anonymous job platform Blind and were later picked up by a Chinese tech portal, indicated that the proposed cuts would impact white-collar roles, particularly employees at levels L5 to L7, across divisions such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail and human resources.
The reports had also suggested that the layoffs would be limited to non-operational roles, with warehouse and logistics staff unlikely to be affected. Some claims further indicated that certain teams in China could be part of the exercise.
However, Amazon has dismissed all such reports, stating that there is no basis to the claims of a large-scale workforce reduction at this time.
