U.S. Companies Cite AI as Top Reason for Job Cuts in April

U.S. companies have named artificial intelligence as the leading driver of job cuts for the second consecutive month. In April, employers announced 83,387 layoffs, a 38 percent increase from March, according to a report released Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm.

AI accounted for 26 percent of those cuts. So far this year, 49,135 layoffs have been attributed to AI, ranking it as the third-largest cause of planned job losses overall. Companies are increasing their reliance on AI. Major firms are directing billions of dollars into the technology, particularly for the construction of large-scale data centers across the country.

In April one company announced it would reduce about 10 percent of its workforce while citing increased expenditures on AI. Earlier in the year its chief executive said that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.

Employee unease is growing.

An April survey by The Associated Press found that 18 percent of U.S. workers believe their current job is likely to be eliminated within the next five years due to new technology, automation, robots or AI. The technology sector was hardest hit by layoffs with 33,361 job cuts in April.

That brought the year-to-date total to 85,411, a 33 percent increase from the same period in 2025 and the sector’s highest year-to-date total since 2023. Technology companies continue to announce large-scale cuts and are leading all industries in layoff announcements.

They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is.

Other industries also reported significant layoffs in April, including the government sector with 9,149 job cuts, warehousing with 5,743 cuts, and the pharmaceutical industry with 7,440 layoffs through April, a 500 percent increase from the same period in 2025.

Hiring plans plummeted 69 percent from March to about 10,000 planned positions. They are down 38 percent from last April, when companies planned to hire 16,191 people. The report concluded that hiring plans will remain muted. The latest U.S. Jobs Report found that the American market added 115,000 new positions.

This figure surpassed forecasters' expectations of 65,000 new jobs, though it marked a deceleration from the 185,000 jobs created in March. The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.3 percent. Hiring has been driven by the healthcare sector, which has added 360,000 jobs over the past year.

In contrast, other sectors collectively cut 120,000 jobs over the same period.