Tech companies have been laying off employees for a while now. I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates but I suppose we'll see.

> I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates

It's not because of pandemic overhiring, and if that were true, the layoffs in 2021-2022 would have handled it. It's 2026. The people getting laid off (on average) haven't worked at these companies since before the pandemic, they got hired in ~2023 (average tenure at a tech company is ~3 years).

It's not because of AI either. Nobody is replacing jobs with AI, AI can't do anyone's job.

It's not because of interest rates. People hired like crazy when interest rates were this high in the oughts.

It's because Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and subsequent management convinced every executive in tech that you can cut to the bone, fuck your product's quality completely, and be totally fine. It's not true, but the downsides come later and the cash influx comes now, so they're doing it anyway.

I agree that AI was not the _actual_ reason, however, it did allow them to do massive layoffs without admitting they are doing poorly and not taking a massive hit to their stock price.