80,000 Become Unemployed in 2026, Layoff Wave Already Severe
The phenomenon of redundancies (PHK) continues unabated and shows an increasing trend. In the first three months of 2026, nearly 80,000 jobs were impacted.
According to the Chief AI at one of the world’s largest outsourcing companies, a total of 78,557 employees worldwide in the technology sector were affected by redundancies from 1 January to 1 April 2026.
The United States (US) contributed the largest share, with 76.7% of the total technology sector redundancies in early 2026, according to analysis from RationalFX. The data was gathered from redundancy announcements, labour department notifications, and technology job tracking websites.
Almost half of the global redundancies in the technology industry, or 37,638 affected workers, are linked directly or indirectly to the implementation of AI and workflow automation, according to RationalFX analysis.
Babak Hodjat, Chief AI at Cognizant, one of the world’s largest IT service providers, said it could take up to another year for the impact of AI on the job market to become truly clear.
This means that the current number of redundancies in the global technology sector does not yet fully reflect the impact. In figures, the US leads in technology sector redundancies with 59,510 affected. This is followed by Australia (4,450), Austria (2,000), Sweden (1,938), and the Netherlands (1,700).
Next are India (1,620), Israel (1,539), Singapore (1,196), the UK (1,050), and Spain (750), cited from Nikkei Asia, Wednesday (8/4/2026).
“I don’t know if these first-quarter redundancies are directly related to actual productivity increases,” said Hodjat.
According to him, workforce reductions can also be driven by expectations that AI will boost productivity, rather than by actual increases.
“Sometimes, AI becomes a scapegoat from a financial perspective, such as when a company has hired too many employees, or they want to downsize the company, and it’s blamed on AI,” he added.
He said that does not mean AI has no impact on current redundancies. However, he believes it will take another six months or a year from now for the actual number of redundancies to be truly affected by AI, as its productivity gains will become visibly real.
“I think it will be painful for all of us as we go through it, and right now it’s still a transitional phase,” said Hodjat.
According to him, companies will face more challenges during the transition period in integrating AI into workflows. Cognizant itself is said to be undergoing this transition process currently.