Data current as of October 12, 2026. Numbers on this page snapshot the JobShift dataset on the date above; the AI layoffs view refreshes continuously as new WARN filings and news coverage land.
No new announcement in eleven weeks
JobShift's AI hiring and layoffs comparison, published September 15, reported zero AI-attributed layoff announcements in August and the first ten days of September. That gap has not closed. As of October 12, JobShift has not recorded a single new AI-attributed layoff announcement since ServiceNow's July 28 filing, a stretch of 76 days.
| Month | AI-attributed layoff announcements | Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 2026 | 1 | 290 |
| Jul 2026 | 4 | 6,105 |
| Aug 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2026 (through Oct 12) | 0 | 0 |
The announcement count groups WARN filings and news coverage by company and date, the same grain used on the site's other AI-layoff pages. A single restructuring that generates filings across multiple states counts once, not once per filing.
The pause did not come with a general layoff slowdown
Total US layoff events of any kind, AI-attributed or not, held between 276 and 371 per month from June through September 2026, with no step-down during the pause months: September's count (371) was higher than July's (276), the last month with AI-attributed activity. What changed is the share of that volume carrying an AI attribution, not the overall pace of layoffs.
Where the activity was concentrated before the pause
Since JobShift's AI-attribution tracking began in February 2025, 55 announcements meeting the news-link-anchored standard have touched 13 states. California and Washington account for most of them; eleven other states have recorded one, or a handful, each. The four announcements immediately before the pause came from three companies: Microsoft filed in Washington on July 1 and July 6, then Uber (July 22) and ServiceNow (July 28), both headquartered in California, closed out the month.
What the pause does not establish
A gap of this length is still short relative to the news-coverage dependency built into this measure. AI attribution here requires a qualifying news article linking a layoff to AI, at a confidence level JobShift's classifier treats as reliable. A company can conduct a layoff for AI-related reasons without a reporter naming AI as the cause, or coverage can lag the filing by weeks. The pause documented above is a gap in qualifying coverage of AI-attributed layoffs, not proof that no AI-related layoff occurred anywhere in the US during this period.
WARN Act filings generally apply to layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single site. A smaller AI-attributed layoff, or one in a state without WARN-equivalent reporting requirements, would not appear in this count regardless of press coverage.
One pause is one data point, not a trend line. The monthly table above shows real month-to-month variation before the pause, including a single-announcement June between an eight-announcement May and a four-announcement July. A pause of this length has not occurred elsewhere in the 20-month history of this measure, but the measure has not run long enough to establish how often a gap this size should be expected under ordinary variation.
What the data does show
Across the specific companies and news coverage this measure tracks, AI-attributed layoff announcements stopped arriving after July 28, 2026, while the broader pace of US layoffs did not change. Thirteen states have ever recorded one of these announcements in the measure's 20-month history, and the four filings immediately preceding the pause came from three companies. Whether the pause reflects an actual slowdown in AI-related layoff decisions, a temporary lull in qualifying news coverage, or both, is not something this measure can distinguish on its own.
Live per-company data
The national snapshot on this page reflects the JobShift dataset on October 12, 2026. For current activity as new postings and WARN filings land:
- The AI layoffs view shows AI-attributed layoffs with monthly totals and per-company detail.
- The AI hiring and layoffs comparison tracks AI hiring postings alongside AI-attributed layoffs as two separate measures.
- The state pages show combined hiring and layoff activity for any individual state.
- The methodology page documents the AI-attribution logic applied to layoff events.