Two of the biggest names in tech are cutting workers by the tens of thousands to bankroll AI infrastructure they don’t fully have yet. Oracle terminated roughly 30,000 employees via 6 AM emails on March 31. Meta is planning to cut another 8,000 starting May 20, on top of the thousands already gone. HR software company UKG slashed 950 positions on April 15, blaming “rapidly evolving market shifts” driven by AI.
But the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. IBM announced it will triple entry-level hiring in the US this year. And even OpenAI’s Sam Altman says some of these “AI layoffs” have nothing to do with AI.
The Numbers This Week
The Challenger, Gray & Christmas March report puts the trend in sharp relief. US employers announced 60,620 job cuts in March — up 25% from February. AI led all cited reasons for the first time, accounting for 15,341 of those cuts, or 25% of the total. That’s up from 10% in February and just 5% for all of 2025.
Through Q1 2026, nearly 80,000 tech workers have been laid off, with almost half of those positions explicitly attributed to AI and automation.
The technology sector alone announced 18,720 cuts in March, bringing its 2026 total to 52,050 — up 40% from the same period last year and the highest year-to-date total since 2023.
Oracle: Fire Workers, Build Data Centers
Oracle’s layoffs stand out for both scale and bluntness. The company cut an estimated 30,000 workers — roughly 18% of its global workforce — to free up cash for a $156 billion AI data center buildout. Two divisions bore the brunt: Revenue and Health Sciences and SaaS/Virtual Operations Services each lost about 30% of their staff.
Teams working on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and AI services were largely spared. Some are actively hiring.
The arithmetic is straightforward: TD Cowen estimates the cuts could generate up to $10 billion in savings, and that money is earmarked for AI infrastructure. Oracle is literally converting human headcount into GPU clusters.
Meta: More Cuts Coming
Meta is reportedly preparing to lay off approximately 8,000 employees — about 10% of its global workforce — starting May 20, with further reductions expected in the second half of 2026.
The cuts will largely target middle management and non-engineering teams. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” continues into its third year, this time with $135 billion in AI investment to offset. Like Oracle, the strategy is clear: fewer people in support roles, more capital in AI infrastructure.
The AI Washing Problem
Not everyone buys the narrative that AI is behind all these cuts. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC-TV18 in February that “there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do.”
The data backs him up. Of the 108,435 job cuts recorded in January 2026 — the highest monthly total since 2009 — AI was explicitly cited in only about 7,600. A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that nearly 90% of surveyed C-suite executives across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia said AI had no impact on employment at their companies over the past three years.
That doesn’t mean AI isn’t displacing workers. It means the “AI made us do it” excuse is often cover for garden-variety cost-cutting, over-hiring corrections, and margin pressure from cautious consumers and geopolitical headwinds.
IBM Goes the Other Direction
IBM’s approach is a deliberate contrast. CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux announced in February that IBM would triple its US entry-level hiring in 2026, arguing that companies slashing junior roles now are creating a mid-level talent vacuum they’ll pay for in three to five years.
The catch: these aren’t the same entry-level jobs from 2023. IBM has rewritten role descriptions to account for AI fluency. Software engineers spend less time on routine coding and more on customer interaction. HR staffers focus on intervening where chatbots fall short rather than fielding every question.
IBM is betting that AI doesn’t eliminate junior roles — it changes them. And that the companies hiring now will have a pipeline advantage over those that panicked.
The Salary Split
The wage data tells two stories. Workers with AI skills now earn a 56% premium over similar roles without those skills, up from 25% last year. AI Engineer is LinkedIn’s fastest-growing job title, with postings up 143% year-over-year.
But entry-level developer roles have declined 20% to 35% globally in the past year. Companies are cutting where AI handles the output — basic CRUD development, manual testing, template design — while hiring where AI needs human guidance: AI engineering, governance, ethics, and MLOps.
The result is a widening gap. Senior AI specialists can command $500,000-plus at big tech companies. Generative AI expertise averages $174,727. But the traditional paths that get people to those roles are being dismantled faster than replacements are being built.
What This Means
The market is bifurcating in real time. If you work in AI engineering, governance, or infrastructure, demand outstrips supply 3.2 to 1 and salaries keep rising. If you work in roles that AI tools can approximate — junior development, manual testing, basic content creation, back-office administration — the floor is falling.
The Challenger data has one bright spot buried in the March report: hiring plans rose 157% month-over-month to 32,826. Companies are still hiring. They’re just hiring for different things.
What You Can Do
If you’re job hunting: Target the gap between AI capabilities and business needs. Companies don’t need more people who can use ChatGPT. They need people who can build AI systems, evaluate their outputs, and handle the situations where automation breaks down. AI governance and ethics roles are up 150% in demand.
If you’re employed and nervous: Build AI fluency, but don’t stop there. IBM’s hiring bet tells you what smart companies value: people who can work alongside AI tools, not just operate them. Customer interaction, judgment calls, cross-functional coordination — these are the skills that survive automation.
If you’ve been laid off with “AI” as the reason: Consider whether it was genuine displacement or AI washing. If the company is rehiring for similar roles with slightly different titles (and many are), you may have leverage to return at a higher rate. The boomerang hiring trend from last week’s report is still playing out.