Tech layoffs in 2026 have already surpassed all of 2025 — and August isn't over

As August draws to a close, it's ending the way it began — with mass layoffs at major tech companies. Recent reports show that companies including Apple, TikTok, Netflix and LinkedIn continued cutting staff through the second half of the month.

Apple cut jobs on its Siri and Vision Pro teams, in one of the most talked-about layoffs of the year given how rarely the company announces mass job cuts. Reports initially put the Vision Pro team cuts at more than 60 employees, before Bloomberg later reported additional reductions in the Siri and gaming divisions — bringing the total to roughly 200 employees laid off. An Apple spokesperson confirmed the cuts, saying they came "alongside the creation of new roles" and affected "some existing positions."

TikTok laid off 75 employees in the Seattle area — the second wave of cuts after it closed its Nashville content moderation office in early August, affecting 250 people. This round hit teams tied to e-commerce, including data specialists and software engineers.

Netflix shut down two game studios — Night School Studio in Los Angeles, maker of the popular Oxenfree series, and Moonloot in Helsinki — without disclosing how many employees were let go. LinkedIn made cuts at its research and development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, which was established after a Microsoft-owned company acquired the analytics startup Oribi for $80–90 million in 2022.

The latest cuts bring 2026's total tech layoffs, tracked by Layoffs.fyi, to 127,180 employees across 281 companies — already nearly 5,000 more than the full-year total for 2025, with August still not over. Even so, 2026's tally remains well below the 2023 peak, when 265,660 tech employees lost their jobs across 1,194 companies.

The trend sends a clear signal to managers and entrepreneurs: even as investment in artificial intelligence accelerates, even the biggest tech companies are being forced to restructure their organizations — just one facet of broader shifts reshaping the global labor market.