Oracle, Amazon, Dell lead global job cuts amid AI push

A series of layoffs by different tech giants and multinational companies have swept through the first quarter of 2026, with globally around 61,000 jobs, several thousands of them in India, cut as the companies are increasingly shifting towards artificial intelligence that is replacing the workforce.

The largest job cut has come from Oracle, a multinational technology company, which reduced its global workforce by 30,000, including around 12,000 jobs in India. The layoffs, according to the company, are part of organisational restructuring amid focus on its cloud and AI infrastructure business.

Prior to Oracle, 2026 commenced with Amazon cutting around 16,000 jobs as part of its restructuring and AI-focus. The layoffs also impacted the company’s robotics



division. This was the second such mass layoff since October last, when the company reduced staff by 14,000.

While some companies are publicly announcing reduction of their workforce, a few like Dell Technologies silently cut about 11,000 jobs worldwide during the fiscal year 2026. This reduction, as per reports, is 10 percent of its total staff, which has gone down from 1,08,000 in January 2024 to 97,000 as of January 2026.

Joining the layoffs is the Block Inc. (formerly Square), a fintech company, which announced 4,000 jobs cut. The company cited advances in AI as its main reason for downsizing the staff. Epic Games, a video game and software company, and Salesforce, a cloud-based software company, announced layoffs of 1,000 and 1,500 respectively, with similar reasons.