No one likes to be fired, but it’s a reality of life in the fast-paced technology and telecom industries.
No matter how you feel about AI and the future of work, it’s undeniable that companies are starting to think differently about their human workforces. With this tracker, we are keeping tabs on mass layoffs in the very industries that enable the AI revolution.
We also recognize that all layoffs aren’t created equally. This list is a compilation of the most consequential mass layoffs in the tech and telecom industries this year. Rest assured we will keep tabs on company headcounts as they are made public.
For those watching for layoff trends in 2026, we hope this list will help you make sense of the employment landscape. And for those who have been the subject of layoffs this year, we hope this list will help you see that you aren’t alone.
If you think we missed something, send us an email at [email protected]. We will continue to update this story throughout the year.
August 6 — T-Mobile's six-month layoff tally nears 4,700
T-Mobile has been letting staff go in fits and starts throughout the first half of 2026, making the scale of the cuts hard to nail down. But parent company Deutsche Telekom shed some light on the situation during its Q2 2026 earnings, disclosing T-Mobile cut 4,671 jobs between December 31, 2025 and June 30, 2026.
"The Group’s headcount decreased by 3.2 % against year-end 2025, mainly on account of the reduced workforce at T‑Mobile US," it wrote in its earnings report. "The total number of full-time equivalent employees in our United States operating segment as of June 30, 2026, decreased by 6.7 % compared to December 31, 2025, primarily due to the impact of the 2025-2026 Workforce Transformation."
It is not clear how many more positions T-Mobile plans going forward.
July 16 — Verizon closes stores, slashes 500 jobs
Verizon revealed plans to sell 274 company-owned retail stores and cut about 500 corporate jobs as part of its ongoing restructuring. In total, about 3,000 jobs are impacted, of which 2,500 are retail employees, Verizon spokesman Rich Young told Fierce.
The cuts follow the significantly more extensive layoffs Verizon undertook in 2025, when it slashed 13,000 positions. It also laid off 121 employees in New Jersey in May of this year.
Read our full coverage of the move here.
May 13 — Cisco slashes 4,000 jobs to ramp investments in AI, silicon optics
Cisco announced plans to layoff 4,000 workers, as part of a restructuring effort executives said would help the company invest more in key growth areas. The announcement came as the company reported record fiscal Q3 2026 revenue of $15.8 billion.
Employee notifications were set to begin on May 14.
"Things are moving incredibly fast right now and this is more realigning...resources around silicon optics, security and AI" to be able to respond to a rapidly shifting market, CFO Mark Patterson said on an earnings call. Cisco said it expects to see a $1 billion hit to its financial results related to the restructuring.
April 23 — Meta and Microsoft collectively cut jobs to the tune of 20,000
Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs, about 10% of its workforce, and removing another 6,000 open positions said Chief People Officer Janelle Gale in an internal memo on April 23.
Likewise, Microsoft offered early retirement incentives to about 7% of its 150,000-strong U.S. workforce — as many as 8,750 employees. The company employed a so-called “70 rule,” whereby employees whose age and years employed at the company sum to 70 or more are eligible for the buyout.
All this as the two hyperscalers, and most of their peers across the sector, continue pouring capital into an ever-increasing number of AI projects. Between chips, data centers, telecom infrastructure and titanic energy projects, billions of dollars are flowing into AI-focused projects every day.
Huge expenditures are forcing companies to choose between cutting back their AI ambitions and making cuts elsewhere — increasingly to workers’ detriment.
March 31 — Oracle cuts thousands amid AI infra push
Oracle began making deep cuts to its staff, with analysts tipping the number of impacted employees to hit between 20,000 and 30,000. The latter figure is roughly 18% of the company’s workforce.
The move comes shortly after Oracle replaced Safra Catz as CEO and as the company pushes to speeds its AI infrastructure buildout to satisfy an order backlog that has ballooned to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Feb. 2 — T-Mobile cuts 363 based in Washington state
For the second time in as many months, T-Mobile is reducing its workforce. This time, the cuts are coming out of Washington state, where the telco giant is headquartered.
According to a filing with the state’s Employment Security Department, T-Mobile reported it is laying off 363 people in Washington. The cuts are sweeping; employees from a wide range of departments and from all around the state were affected.
T-Mobile’s stock has been in a year-long slump, and newly installed CEO Srini Gopalan is no doubt looking to make his mark by trimming staff and reorganizing. The company will report its Q4 and full-year results to shareholders on Feb. 11.
But T-Mobile isn’t the only one looking to slim-down is workforce. Washinton’s tech sector has seen thousands of layoffs already this year. Amazon, which is headquartered in the state, reported more than 2,500 layoffs in January.
Jan. 15 — Ericsson cuts 1,600 from Swedish workforce
Ericsson announced on Jan. 15 that it would reduce its workforce by 12% in its home country.
The Swedish telco said the move is just one of the “initiatives to increase operational efficiency” it’s taking across the business. The latest cuts are a continuance of the company’s March 2024 layoffs, which axed 1,200 employees from its Sweden business.
Ericsson’s job cuts are in-step with its Nordic rival, Nokia’s, plans to shutter its Munich office by 2023, taking with it as many as 700 employees.
Jan. 12 — T-Mobile quietly prunes back sales jobs
On Jan. 12, Fierce Network reported on what appeared to be mass layoffs across T-Mobile’s sales roles.
In a post to the r/tmobile subreddit last December, one user claimed that the telco’s “sales teams are being significantly reduce nationwide,” with a particular focus on “account executives and sales managers.” Other Reddit users supported that claim in comments and other posts to the site.
When asked, T-Mobile told Fierce it was making “some changes,” but it declined to say how many employees had been terminated.
Jan. 5 — Telefónica pushes ahead with layoff plan
Spanish telco Telefónica has been planning sweeping layoffs from its Spain business since last year. Late last year, the company scaled back its scheme after a series of union negotiations.
It now looks like Telefónica will go ahead with as many as 5,000 layoffs by the end of the year, most of which will come from its Spain business. The company will reportedly offer compensation to affected employees to the tune of $3 billion (€2.5 billion).
This is a running story and will be updated periodically. Click here to explore last year’s layoff tracker.