Fears that the mass adoption of AI will lead to huge waves of layoffs may be overblown, according to fresh data from employment analysts Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which reveals that the technology has barely made a ripple.

Focusing on US‑based firms, employers announced 48,307 job cuts in February, down 72% on the same month last year, yet more than 156,700 layoffs have been reported in the first quarter of 2026, marking the fifth‑highest Q1 to date since 2009.

Of those layoffs, 11,039 technology workers suffered the swing of the axe last month, for a total of 33,330 job cuts for tech so far in 2026, an increase of 51% announced in the same period last year.

Compare that with education, which saw 5,417 job losses in February, for a total of 6,209, or industrial manufacturing, which saw 4,109 cuts last month, bringing the sector’s 2026 total to 5,685.

Some of the most high-profile cuts have been attributed to AI, including Jack Dorsey’s recent decision to reduce Block Inc.’s headcount by nearly 4,000 due to AI productivity gains, a move put more succinctly by the Grok bot as “AI plus tiny teams now let us do the same work with way fewer bodies.”   

Similarly, with the likes of Amazon, Citigroup, and even BT have all announced heavy “restructuring” plans built around automation and artificial intelligence, it would appear that we are well on our way to meeting the NFER’s prediction that up to three million UK jobs could disappear within the next decade as a result of AI.

These huge, headline-grabbing layoffs make it easy to blame emerging tech as the root cause of every industry’s cuts, but Challenger, Gray & Christmas found the technology was cited as the reason for just 4,680 job cuts in February, only around 10% of total losses over the month. 

So far in 2026, the data shows AI has been cited for 12,304 layoff announcements, or 8% of job cut plans, figures which suggest this year will likely follow the last, with companies referencing AI for 54,836 layoff plans over 2025. 

Since 2023, when this reason was first tracked, AI has been cited in 91,753 job cut announcements, around 3% of all layoff plans, despite AI having been adopted by a swathe of firms across every sector in that time. 

“AI is the big story, but there are also global regulatory concerns, a slowdown in digital advertising driven by tariffs and economic uncertainty, and higher costs to both employ workers and access funding, forcing companies to make difficult decisions,” said Challenger.

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While these figures offer a brighter snapshot of AI’s current impact on the job market, the technology is still in its early stages, and the long‑term outlook is far less reassuring.

Recent data from Anthropic found no “systemic increase” in unemployment linked to professions most exposed to AI since late 2022, when the game-changing ChatGPT was launched. 

However, there is plenty of evidence that computer programmers, software analysts, customer service representatives, data keepers, and market research analysts may all soon find their roles redefined, if not immediately lost, as workers in these fields already report AI taking over between 50-75% of their everyday work.