The tech job market is a bloodbath. It’s likely going to get even worse.

During the past several years, tech companies across the world have slashed thousands of jobs, and now, data suggests that the current bloodbath is about to get even worse.    

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According to a May 12 report from Statista, which gathered data from Layoffs.fyi, a site that publicly tracks mass firings, there have already been over 100,000 layoffs in tech this year — almost equaling the total number of tech layoffs in 2025, and over two-thirds of the ones in 2024. “As our chart shows, layoffs totaled around 81,700 in the first quarter alone, the highest quarterly figure since early 2023, before adding about 20,000 more in the first six weeks of the second quarter,” the report says, attributing the major restructuring to investment in artificial intelligence. Overall, it’s a “sharp reversal” from 2025, when layoffs stayed lower at “around 27,000 to 37,000 per quarter,” the report continues. 

This 2026 surge almost rivals the first significant wave of layoffs of 2023, according to Statista, when more than 160,000 people were let go in the first quarter alone. And it’s likely going to get even worse: “The current trajectory suggests the sector may be entering another period of restructuring, with 2026 already on track to rival the scale of layoffs seen in previous downturns,” the May Statista report says. 

For years now, the tech world has been hemorrhaging skilled workers at major companies like Meta, Salesforce and Oracle, many of whom now face the possibility of long-term unemployment. With some CEOs treating layoffs as a scarlet letter, it’s becoming even more difficult for workers to get ahead in an increasingly brutal job market rife with ghost jobs.  

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“I think there’s an unspoken bias,” Brian Creely, a tech recruiter and career coach, previously told SFGATE, referring to the attitude toward laid-off workers. Despite their competence, he said that some executives referred to them as “damaged goods” and “table scraps.” If the trajectory for 2026 continues, that stigma will only affect even more people.