TECH IS KILLING 1,115 JOBS EVERY WORKING DAY IN 2026 AND AI IS TAKING THE CREDIT The tech industry has cut 183,966 jobs through mid-June 2026 across 247 separate layoff events, according to new tracking data. That works out to 1,115 jobs destroyed every single working day, nearly double the pace recorded in 2025. May alone accounted for roughly 40,000 cuts, the worst single month in two years. Nearly half of all announced layoffs, 48 percent, have been explicitly attributed to AI and workflow automation. But the attribution may be doing more political work than analytical work. OpenAI’s Sam Altman acknowledged in February that companies are using AI as convenient cover for workforce reductions they were planning to execute regardless. The numbers do not show a productivity boom that would justify the pace of cuts on its own merits. Profitable companies including Meta, Amazon, and Oracle are laying people off to redirect cash toward a combined $700 billion AI infrastructure buildout. The human cost is landing hardest on young workers. People in their twenties in AI-exposed roles have seen a 3 percent rise in unemployment and a 14 percent drop in job-finding rates since the rollout of advanced AI tools began. The workers most likely to benefit from learning AI are also the ones being displaced before they get the chance to do so. That contradiction is shaping up to be the defining economic story of 2026 and nobody in Washington is talking about it seriously. Keywords: tech layoffs 2026, AI job displacement, workforce cuts AI automation, tech unemployment 2026