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Hey everyone,
As of this week, 2026 has officially had more tech layoffs than all of 2025, and there are still four months left on the calendar. TikTok cut another 75 jobs in Seattle. Netflix quietly closed two game studios. LinkedIn, the site literally built for finding a job, is cutting its own R&D team in Tel Aviv. And a few weeks ago Apple, which almost never does layoffs, cut 200 people from Siri and Vision Pro.
This week we're getting into what's actually driving this, and more importantly, where the hiring hasn't stopped, because there's a specific split happening that most doom-and-gloom headlines skip over.
What we're reading
Fast Company's full August layoffs roundup: Apple, TikTok, Netflix, and LinkedIn all cut jobs this month alone, with specifics on which teams got hit at each one.
The 2026 layoffs tracker confirms it: 205,832 tech workers laid off so far this year, edging past all of 2025's total, averaging 865 job losses a day.
A tech job market report from Pin shows why the headlines feel contradictory: general software engineering postings are down 49% from pre-pandemic levels, while machine learning engineer postings are up 59% over the same window.
Tech Just Broke Its Own Layoff Record. Here's Who's Still Hiring.
Four months left and we already broke the record.
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That's it.
Here's the roundup, in one place: TikTok cut 75 more jobs in its Seattle office this month, on top of 250 cut earlier in August when it shut its Nashville content moderation office. The new round hit e-commerce teams specifically, including data scientists and software engineers. Netflix quietly closed two game studios, Night School Studio (the team behind Oxenfree) and Helsinki-based Moonloot, without disclosing headcount. LinkedIn is cutting its Tel Aviv R&D center, the one it built after acquiring the startup Oribi in 2022. And Apple, a company that almost never touches headcount, cut 200 people from Siri and Vision Pro a few weeks back.
The numbers:
Tech workers laid off in 2026 so far
205,832
All of 2025's total
205,773
Months left in 2026
~4
Average job losses per day this year
865
Notice that 2026 barely edged past 2025, and it did it with four months still to go. That's not a random blip, it's the same macro pressure (cost discipline dressed up as "AI efficiency," slower growth, cautious spending) showing up at company after company, regardless of size or how healthy the business actually is.
We're making these proposed organizational changes to best position ourselves for future success by focusing our teams and business on the highest impact priorities.
Read that quote again and remember it's coming from the platform whose entire business model is helping other people find a job.
Where the hiring hasn't stopped:
Role type | Postings vs. pre-pandemic baseline |
|---|---|
General software engineer | Down 49% |
Machine learning engineer | Up 59% |
AI-skilled staff engineer pay premium | +18.7% over non-AI peers |
What this actually means for you:
If your resume just says "software engineer" with nothing AI or ML-specific on it, you're competing for the shrinking half of the market. That doesn't mean panic-pivot your whole degree, it means the next project you build should have a real, explainable AI or ML component you can talk through in an interview, not just "I used ChatGPT to help write this."
Before you accept an offer anywhere, check whether that specific company has had layoffs in the last six months. Layoffs.fyi and the tracker linked above are both free and update constantly. Two minutes of searching a company name is cheaper than finding out on day 90.
Learn to hear the corporate-speak red flag. "Realigning to focus on highest impact priorities" is what both Apple and LinkedIn said this month, right before or right as they cut people. If you hear a version of that sentence in an all-hands at your own company, that's your signal to start quietly updating your resume, not to wait for the official announcement.
None of this means don't go into tech. It means stop treating "software engineer" as one job market when it's actually two: a crowded, contracting one and a scarce, expensive one, and only one of them is safe to assume you're automatically part of.
This week's sponsor, Attio, is built for the AI-native side of that split. It's a CRM that pulls in AI agents to do the manual data entry and follow-up work a human used to have to do by hand, which is exactly the kind of stack companies hiring for that scarce, expensive half of the market are building around right now. Worth poking around even just to see what an AI-native product actually looks like under the hood.
Four months are left in a year that's already broken the record. Whatever happens next, the split between the shrinking job market and the growing one isn't going away before you graduate, so it's worth building toward the side that's actually hiring.
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Until next time,
Team Jobless
