Posted on 04/05/2026 8:56:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
* Artificial intelligence was the leading cause of U.S. layoffs announced in March, accounting for roughly a quarter of the total, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report Thursday.
* Overall, U.S. employers announced 60,620 job cuts last month, a 25% increase compared with February, the report found. The month’s total included 15,341 layoffs attributed to AI.
* “Companies are shifting budgets toward AI investments at the expense of jobs,” Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at the Chicago-based firm, said in the report. “The actual replacing of roles can be seen in technology companies, where AI can replace coding functions. Other industries are testing the limits of this new technology, and while it can’t replace jobs completely, it is costing jobs.”
The tech industry announced 18,720 job cuts in March, more than any other sector, bringing its first-quarter 2026 totals to 52,050, a 40% increase from a year earlier, according to the research. It marks the industry’s highest first-quarter total since 2023, when the sector recorded 102,391 cuts, the outplacement firm said.
Dell said last month that its headcount stood at 97,000 employees as of Jan. 30, 2026. That’s down from 108,000 a year earlier.
“Throughout fiscal 2026, we remained committed to disciplined cost management in coordination with our ongoing business modernization initiatives and continued to take certain measures to reduce costs, including employee reorganizations, limitation of external hiring and other actions to align our investments with our announced strategic and customer priorities,” the company said in a 10-K filing.
“These actions resulted in a continued reduction in our overall headcount. Despite these difficult decisions, we continue focused efforts to empower our employees and attract, develop and retain talent,” Dell added.
Oracle and Meta are among other tech giants that announced layoffs in March, the Challenger report noted. “More layoffs are likely to come from technology companies in 2026,” it said.
Despite the monthly surge, job cuts were down 78% in March on a year-over-year basis.
Public-sector layoffs have declined sharply, with a total of 2,270 year to date compared with 279,445 a year earlier, when the Department of Government Efficiency was a leading reason cited for cuts.
The latest report showed hiring plans rose sharply in March to 32,826, up 157% from February and 149% compared with a year earlier, though year-to-date hiring remains slightly below last year’s levels at 50,887 compared with 53,867 in 2025.
Besides AI, major drivers of layoffs last month included closings, organizational restructuring and economic conditions.
” According to our folks Core is so stripped down”
A few years ago, I converted a 5+ million line, 400 project system from 4.8 Framework to .Net 6 and lately to .Net 10. I would say Core is far more mature than 4.8. Not trying to argue, but I was skeptical a few years ago converting to .Net 6 and thought the rewrite would be a killer being a time vampire that is usually expected with such conversions, but it turned out to be the best decision and unlocked many needed and up to date capabilities.
It was also very easy to understand the path from 4.8 to Core. As Laz said, even AI can do the conversion automagically now too. Laz is not kidding there.
The mapping from 4.8 Framework to Core Razor pages on the website code was very easy to understand and accomplish, so I can see how AI could do it with little problem.
Also, the amount of code needed for Core is much less than with 4.8 Framework. With the latest C#, the code can easily be shrunk 5:1 over previous language versions. There has been excellent updates to Core and C#.
Just my two cents.
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