20,000 job cuts at Meta, Microsoft raise concern that AI-driven labor crisis is here

The more than 20,000 potential job cuts Meta and Microsoft revealed on Thursday, months after Amazon announced its most widespread layoffs ever, may only be the beginning. The same companies that are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure to meet soaring demand for AI services are seeking efficiencies from AI by slashing headcount. They're also still trying to rightsize from the pandemic-fueled overhiring. Many economists and industry experts are fearful that a labor crisis may be upon us today — not coming sometime in the future — given how quickly AI is sweeping across corporate America. As of this week, over 92,000 tech workers have been laid off so far in 2026, according to Layoffs.fyi, bringing the total to almost 900,000 since 2020 "This represents a fundamental structural shift rather than a temporary market correction," said Anthony Tuggle, an executive coach and leadership expert who previously worked in AI. "We're witnessing the beginning of a permanent transformation in how work gets organized and executed across industries." Job anxiety has been on the rise since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, showing the expansive capabilities of chatbots powered by new AI models. Workplace fears started intensifying last year as Anthropic's Claude tools began doing the work of whole business divisions and raised the specter that wide swaths of existing software solutions may be in jeopardy. Tec