Tech companies in Silicon Valley have jettisoned a noteworthy number of employees in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n
Companies in the sector have laid off 7,295 employees in the first half 2026 \u2014 just 9% short of the number of jobs cut by tech companies during all of 2025, according to an analysis from Joint Venture Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n
The layoffs are on pace to be the worst in the tech industry since 2023, a particularly bad year of workforce reductions following the COVID-19 pandemic. That year, 14,501 jobs \u2014 roughly double the number in the first half of 2026 \u2014 were cut, according to Joint Venture\u2019s analysis. The analysis was conducted by Danny Wessler, a senior researcher at the think tank.<\/p>\n
Russell Hancock, CEO and president of Joint Venture, described the current economy as a \u201cparadox.\u201d The unemployment rate in Silicon Valley in June was 3.9%<\/a>, slightly lower than the national unemployment rate in July<\/a> of 4.1%. At the same time, the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics job growth report has indicated<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a very hot innovation engine, but it\u2019s not translating into job growth,\u201d Hancock said. \u201cUsually, when you have layoffs or less hiring, people are talking about recession \u2026 This is the exact opposite of that. We are not in a recession. We\u2019re in a boom.\u201d<\/p>\n The results of Joint Venture\u2019s analysis of Silicon Valley are slightly less alarming than a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, which shows global tech layoffs<\/a> in the first seven months of 2026 have already surpassed the number in 2025.<\/p>\n Several factors could be contributing to this year\u2019s tech layoffs, Hancock said. The first is that some companies overhired during the pandemic, when demand for digital services surged and concerns about a labor shortage prompted some companies to expand their workforces. Large language models like ChatGPT were released in 2022 as companies emerged into the post-pandemic economy. Both forces have led some companies to recalibrate toward smaller teams, Hancock said.<\/p>\n Joint Venture\u2019s layoff analysis tracked job cuts in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties through June 30. The organization uses California\u2019s Worker Adjustment and Retraining (WARN) notices, which are filed with the state\u2019s employment development department within 60 days of a mass layoff. But there are caveats to WARN filings, Wessler said.<\/p>\n \u201cWARN reports aren\u2019t perfect \u2014 they only cover bigger layoffs (50+ employees) at bigger companies (75+ employees), and there are ways for companies to get around the filing requirement,\u201d Wessler said. \u201cThe data is almost certainly an undercount, but it gives us a directional sense of scale over time.\u201d<\/p>\n Joint Venture\u2019s methodology classified a company as part of the tech industry by using the NAICS industry code<\/a> and with assistance from artificial intelligence. A significant portion of the layoffs through June came from Meta<\/a>, which cut roughly 3,382 positions from offices in two counties.<\/p>\n Despite the latest wave of layoffs, there are reasons for optimism in the Silicon Valley labor market: Impacted employees from tech companies can generally go to adjacent fields like healthcare or startups, Hancock said.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the folks that are getting laid off \u2026 they land on their feet,\u201d Hancock said. \u201cYes, layoffs, but no corresponding uptick in unemployment. It means that the valley is doing OK. In fact, better than OK. We are the epicenter of this new wave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech companies in Silicon Valley have jettisoned a noteworthy number of employees in the first half of 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-431353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}