2026 just passed all of 2025 in tech layoffs. We're in September.

209,032 tech workers gone. 365 layoff events. 836 jobs evaporating every single day.

That's the SkillSyncer count as of September 7, 2026. We haven't hit Q4 yet.

All of 2025: 338 events, 205,773 workers, 564 per day. 2026 obliterated those numbers in eight months.

50% of every layoff event this year cites AI or automation. 183 events. 172,044 workers. That's not a trend line. That's a purge.

Oracle cut 30,000 in a single morning. Meta axed 8,000 to fund AI research. Amazon shed 16,000 corporate roles after spending $80B on AI infrastructure. Dell sliced 11,000 while its AI server business grew 40%. The pattern is identical: slash humans, buy GPUs, call it strategy.

The roles disappearing fastest: customer support, content creation, QA testing, mid-level management. The roles companies can't hire fast enough for: AI safety researchers, ML ops engineers, prompt architects. Same company. Same quarter. Different species.

Your workforce plan is built on 2025 assumptions. Those assumptions are dead. If your headcount model doesn't account for 836 jobs per day leaving this industry, you're planning for a world that no longer exists.

Audit your function's AI exposure today. Not next quarter. Today.

SOURCE: https://skillsyncer.com/layoffs-tracker
VERIFIED: SkillSyncer tracker (September 7, 2026), Tech Insider (September 5, 2026), eciks.org (July 29, 2026)
SIGNAL: 2026 has already surpassed all of 2025 in total tech layoffs with four months remaining, and AI is cited in half of every event. This is the structural baseline, not a spike.