AI Layoffs Hits 150K While Insiders Print Billions

Tech layoffs have been soaring at an alarming rate in 2026. So far, there have been 363 layoff events involving close to 150,000 workers (that’s ~974 jobs per day, or 44% higher than last year). In the past month, there were approximately 40,000 layoffs (the most in two years), and for the third consecutive month, AI was the primary cause of layoffs in various sectors.

These statistics speak volumes. Block laid off half of its employees (~4,000). Meta fired 8,000 employees (~10% of its total workforce). First, Jack Dorsey said that Block’s layoffs were due to a change in ‘how we work’, but later he revealed that the company had ‘over-hired.’

1The other side of the ledger

As many as tens of thousands of people get axed, a few individuals become billionaires, and it’s difficult to imagine such a thing. Cerebras Systems’ IPO surged by 68%, making co-founders Andrew Feldman and Sean Lie billionaires. SpaceX is now worth $2.1 trillion, which reportedly made around 4,400 employees millionaires and ~400 employees centimillionaires. Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a $170M mansion in Miami (the priciest home ever sold in Miami-Dade county).

As venture capitalist Marc Andreessen noted, “Essentially, every large company is overstaffed… Now they all have the silver bullet excuse: Ah, it’s AI.”

2Why this matters to you

It’s all about the narrative. If AI is a convenient scapegoat to downsize the workforce that management wanted to reduce, the usual response — ‘reskill yourself, you’ll be okay’ — is an incorrect interpretation of the situation. On the home front, health insurance premiums have gone up by 6–7%, insurance rates have doubled since 2008, and house prices have risen by ~28% since early 2020. This disparity between those who bear the brunt of the cuts and those who benefit from them makes it a ticking time bomb rather than a hot topic.