{"id":22611,"date":"2026-04-07T12:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/tech-companies-are-cutting-jobs-and-betting-on-ai-the-payoff-is-far-from-guaranteed\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:38:24","slug":"tech-companies-are-cutting-jobs-and-betting-on-ai-the-payoff-is-far-from-guaranteed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/tech-companies-are-cutting-jobs-and-betting-on-ai-the-payoff-is-far-from-guaranteed\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech companies are cutting jobs and betting on AI. The payoff is far from guaranteed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AI experts say we\u2019re living in an experiment that may fundamentally change the model of work<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2026\/feb\/17\/sign-up-for-the-breaking-news-us-email-to-get-newsletter-alerts-direct-to-your-inbox?utm_medium=ACQUISITIONS_STANDFIRST&amp;utm_campaign=BN22326&amp;utm_content=signup&amp;utm_term=standfirst&amp;utm_source=GUARDIAN_WEB\">Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hundreds of thousands of tech workers are facing a harsh reality. Their well-paying jobs are no longer safe. Now that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/artificialintelligenceai\">artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) is here, their futures don\u2019t look as bright as they did a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>As US tech companies have ramped up investments in AI, they\u2019ve slashed a staggering number of jobs. Microsoft cut 15,000 workers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/may\/13\/microsoft-layoffs\">last<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/may\/13\/microsoft-layoffs\">year<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/jan\/28\/amazon-global-job-cuts-email-error-workers-sent\">Amazon<\/a> laid off 30,000 employees in the last six months. Financial-services company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/mar\/03\/jack-dorsey-block-ai-worker-jobs\">Block eliminated<\/a> more than 4,000 people, or 40% of its workforce, in February. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/25\/technology\/meta-layoffs-ai-executives.htmlfb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur\">Meta<\/a> laid off more than 1,000 in the last six months, and, according to a Reuters report, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/mar\/13\/meta-layoffs-ai\">may cut 20% of all employees in the near future<\/a>. Just this week, the software giant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/apr\/01\/us-tech-firm-oracle-cuts-thousands-of-jobs-as-it-steps-up-ai-spending-larry-ellison\">Oracle laid off thousands<\/a> of workers. Smaller players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/27\/pinterest-layoffs-stock-ai.html\">Pinterest<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/mar\/21\/atlassian-cuts-layoffs-staff-now-looking-for-work-ai\">Atlassian<\/a> also made recent cuts, culling about 15% and 10% of their workforces, respectively. Estimates put the total number of tech layoffs in the past year at more than 165,000, according to the tracker <a href=\"https:\/\/layoffs.fyi\/\">Layoffs.fyi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/apr\/06\/tech-layoffs-ai-work\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/a5dec0c4bab0b2c3481bba58282557c6e882e085\/488_0_4883_3906\/master\/4883.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=cd595336732b2f4f559d78e05e2ca55a\" title=\"Tech companies are cutting jobs and betting on AI. The payoff is far from guaranteed\" \/>AI experts say we\u2019re living in an experiment that may fundamentally change the model of work<br \/>\nSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox<br \/>\nHundreds of thousands of tech workers are facing a harsh reality. Their well-paying jobs are no longer safe. Now that artificial intelligence (AI) is here, their futures don\u2019t look as bright as they did a decade ago.<br \/>\nAs US tech companies have ramped up investments in AI, they\u2019ve slashed a staggering number of jobs. Microsoft cut 15,000 workers last year. Amazon laid off 30,000 employees in the last six months. Financial-services company Block eliminated more than 4,000 people, or 40% of its workforce, in February. Meta laid off more than 1,000 in the last six months, and, according to a Reuters report, may cut 20% of all employees in the near future. Just this week, the software giant Oracle laid off thousands of workers. Smaller players like Pinterest and Atlassian also made recent cuts, culling about 15% and 10% of their workforces, respectively. Estimates put the total number of tech layoffs in the past year at more than 165,000, according to the tracker Layoffs.fyi. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI experts say we\u2019re living in an experiment that may fundamentally change the model of work Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Hundreds of thousands of tech workers are facing a harsh reality. Their well-paying jobs are no longer safe. Now that artificial intelligence (AI) is &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/tech-companies-are-cutting-jobs-and-betting-on-ai-the-payoff-is-far-from-guaranteed\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tech companies are cutting jobs and betting on AI. The payoff is far from guaranteed<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22611"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}