[170000 people were laid off in Silicon Valley this time, exceeding the "COVID-19"] Author | Hualin Dance King Editor | Jingyu The February 2026 US employment data has been released, and a number that silenced economists for a moment - the rate of job loss in the technology industry is surpassing the levels during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic. These two time points represent the two most devastating shocks to the US economy in the past twenty years. And now, the technology industry is stepping on both of them with layoff numbers. The question is, in 2008, the bank collapsed, and in 2020, it was under lockdown due to the pandemic. So, what collapsed on this day in 2026? 01 The foam burst, but not the valuation foam, which was pulled back to 2020 to 2022. The explosion of digital demand generated by the epidemic, coupled with the Federal Reserve's near zero interest rate cheap funds, makes technology companies seem like they have suddenly discovered a gold mine and are expanding wildly. The number of employees in some top companies has doubled or even more in two or three years. The logic at that time was simple - growth was the only KPI, burning money was the only way, and headcount was the only execution tool. And then the interest rate came up. The foundation of growth logic is loosening, valuations are starting to fall, investors are becoming cautious, and layoffs are quietly starting from the end of 2022. But at that time, most people still thought it was a 'adjustment', and everything would come back when the market improved. However, it did not come back. By 2025, the global technology industry will have cut approximately 245000 jobs. American companies contributed nearly 70% of it, exceeding 170000 people. Entering 2026, the momentum has not slowed down, but is accelerating - in just the first six weeks, over 30000 people have been laid off, with more than 80% coming from American companies. After recording a record breaking revenue of $71.69 billion in 2025, Amazon announced that it will cut 16000 corporate jobs in 2026, accounting for more than half of all announced technology layoffs. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block, wrote in a letter to shareholders, 'Smaller teams using the tools we are building can do more and do better.'. Autodesk and Salesforce each laid off approximately 1000 employees at the beginning of the year. Pay attention to this detail - most of these companies are still profitable, and some have even set revenue records. This is not a life and death layoff, it is a voluntary choice of layoff. Has AI become a scapegoat? Every large-scale layoff requires a narrative to explain. This round, AI has become the most convenient one. The statement 'layoffs due to AI substitution' sounds both technological and contemporary, and is irrefutable. But the data tells another story. According to Rational FX's statistics, out of approximately 245000 technology layoffs worldwide, only about 69800 (approximately 28.5%) can be directly attributed to the adoption of AI and automation. That is to say, over 70% of layoffs are due to other reasons behind them. When talking about this issue, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna directly pointed out: "From 2020 to 2023, some companies' employees grew by 30% to 100%, and this is just an adjustment that the company needs to make." He did not blame AI, but pointed to a simpler truth - the economic hangover after excessive recruitment. Of course, AI is not entirely innocent either. It's just that its function is more covert than 'direct substitution' - AI makes companies realize that so many positions don't need to exist. It's not firing someone, but asking the management to recalculate the accounts and find that they're not correct. This logic is more cruel and harder to refute. It's hard to tell the company that 'my job AI can't do it' when it actually does. An analyst used a term to describe this round of layoffs - 'structural reset' rather than 'short-term cost correction'. The difference between these two is that the latter means that you will come back when the market is good, while the former means that that position will no longer exist. This is the most important factor in understanding this technological winter. The past few large-scale layoffs were essentially a temporary contraction of the demand side. The company is waiting for economic recovery, and once it does, the same positions will reopen. But this time, many eliminated positions have been permanently redesigned - companies are rebuilding their organizational structures around AI first workflows. Daniele Grassi, CEO of General Assembly, has issued a clear warning: while companies are reducing headcount and increasing AI investment, this creates a skills gap that will ultimately slow down the pace of transformation. In other words, layoffs themselves are creating new risks. From market data, the technology industry presents a peculiar polarization - the demand for AI related positions is surging, while traditional general technology positions are shrinking. Technology is both growing and shrinking, and these two things happen simultaneously, only to different people. If you are an engineer with a background in AI engineering, understanding prompt word engineering, and able to optimize the inference cost of large models, the job market in 2026 may be the best time for you in recent years. If you are a general product operator, middle office engineer, or traditional salesperson, you may be facing a rapidly shrinking market. This is not an overall decline in the industry, but a rapid redefinition of 'valuable people' within the industry. How cold will this winter be? The judgment of Adam Slater, Chief Economist of Oxford Economics, is alarming - if the technology industry continues to decline, US GDP growth in 2026 may fall to 0.8%, hovering on the brink of a "near recession". Excluding technology investment, there will be almost no growth in the first half of 2025 in the United States. The dependence of the US economy on technology has reached a point where it triggers the whole body. But there is also another voice on the other side. Industry observers at Salesforce point out that if the absolute number of layoffs for the entire year of 2025 is compared to 2024, it has actually decreased by about 20%. The narrative that '2025 is a year of disaster' is not entirely supported by data. This wave of layoffs is more like a transitional period without a clear endpoint, rather than a downward trend with a bottom that can rebound. Enterprises are using layoffs to 'free up space', leaving space for AI tools, for more streamlined teams, and for higher cost-effectiveness. This logic will continue to hold until a certain boundary is crossed - perhaps it's regulation, perhaps it's a technological bottleneck, perhaps it's some kind of consumer reaction. Jack Dorsey's phrase 'smaller teams do more' to some extent represents the collective belief of the entire industry at this moment. The question is, when everyone is getting smaller, who will support the next 'bigger'? The technology industry is not experiencing an ordinary cyclical downturn, but a fundamental question about 'what role do people play in the system'. Unfortunately, the number of layoffs cannot provide an answer to this question.