Career & Job Market — 2026-05-06

Today's Hiring & Layoff Headlines

2 sources

biospace.com

Layoff Tracker: Passage axes 75% of staff, explores strategic alternatives

static.biospace.com

static.biospace.com

Coinbase — Layoff

• What happened: Coinbase announced plans to lay off approximately 15% of its global workforce, one of the largest cuts in the company's history.
• Why: The company cited AI-related automation and workforce efficiency as primary drivers, joining a growing list of firms explicitly attributing headcount reductions to artificial intelligence replacing human workers.
• Impact: Affects multiple teams across the organization; specific role breakdowns and severance details had not been fully disclosed at time of reporting.

3 sources

i.insider.com

i.insider.com

i.insider.com

i.insider.com

i.insider.com

i.insider.com

Passage (Biotech/Tech) — Layoff / Strategic Review

• What happened: Passage axed 75% of its staff and is exploring strategic alternatives, according to the BioSpace Layoff Tracker updated within the last 24 hours.
• Why: Company-level financial and strategic pressures; exploring potential sale or partnership options.
• Impact: Severe reduction in headcount across all functions; the company's future remains uncertain pending strategic review outcome.

Meta — Layoff (Ongoing)

• What happened: Meta is executing its previously announced 10% workforce reduction, with the formal cut date set for May 20, 2026. HR leadership has confirmed further cuts remain possible beyond this round.
• Why: CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed the reductions to AI infrastructure investment priorities and the need to reallocate capital toward capex-heavy AI buildout.
• Impact: Approximately 8,000 employees affected in the current round; contractor workforce at firms like Covalen also facing ~700 at-risk positions.

AI-Attributed Layoffs (Sector-Wide) — Restructuring

• What happened: Business Insider identified 11 companies — including IBM, Coinbase, and Snap — that have explicitly stated AI automation is the reason for workforce reductions in 2026.
• Why: Companies are publicly framing headcount cuts as necessary to fund and operationalize AI investments rather than economic downturns.
• Impact: Crosses industries including crypto, enterprise tech, social media, and financial services; raises broader concerns about structural rather than cyclical job displacement.

Labor Market Pulse

• Total 2026 Tech Layoffs (YTD): 119,721 workers affected across 265 companies as of May 6, 2026 (approx. 958 people per day) — up sharply from prior-year pacing, making 2026 the worst year on record for tech job cuts.

• March 2026 JOLTS — Hires: 5.6 million hires in March (up from February's revised 4.9 million) — signals some hiring activity is continuing even as layoff headlines dominate; job openings held steady at 6.9 million and total separations were little changed at 5.4 million.

• Q1 2026 Employment Cost Index: Compensation costs rose 0.9% from December 2025 to March 2026, and 3.4% over the year — but employers' insurance costs are rising faster than wages, squeezing real compensation gains for workers according to Indeed Hiring Lab analysis published April 30.

• LinkedIn Hiring Rate (Feb 2026): National hiring was virtually unchanged (+0.3%) month-over-month in February, declining -3.4% vs. February 2024 — a second consecutive month of smaller-than-usual declines, suggesting the pace of deterioration may be stabilizing even if outright recovery hasn't arrived.

Sectors in Focus

Hot Sectors (hiring up)

AI & Data Infrastructure: Indeed Hiring Lab's April 28 spotlight report found that job seeker searches for AI roles have grown 11x since ChatGPT's release — and job postings explicitly mentioning AI continue to outpace overall market growth even as broad hiring weakens. BLS's employment projections homepage highlights construction employment growth driven by AI data center expansion and EV infrastructure as bright spots.

Healthcare / Insurance Administration: Q1 2026 Employment Cost Index data shows insurers are receiving larger raises than typical workers, signaling continued demand and compensation pressure in the healthcare and insurance administrative sectors.

Cooling Sectors (hiring down)

Broad Tech / Software: With 119,721 tech workers laid off in 2026 YTD (as of May 6), the sector is experiencing its worst year on record. The pain is concentrated in mid-to-large companies executing AI-related restructuring — crypto, social media, enterprise software, and cloud infrastructure are all seeing cuts.

Biotech / Life Sciences: The BioSpace Layoff Tracker continues to log new entries weekly. Passage's 75% cut this week follows a pattern of smaller biotech firms either pivoting, merging, or winding down as funding conditions remain tight.

Compensation & Role Trends

1. Insurance costs outpacing wage growth: Q1 2026 ECI data shows compensation costs up 3.4% year-over-year — but employers' non-wage costs (especially health insurance) are rising faster, meaning workers' net real compensation gains are smaller than headline numbers suggest. Negotiating total comp packages that account for benefits inflation is increasingly important.

2. AI skill premium growing: Jobs mentioning AI in their postings continue to see stronger demand and posting growth even as overall hiring remains weak (per Indeed Hiring Lab's January 2026 update still relevant to trend). Job seekers searching for AI roles have surged 11x since ChatGPT's launch, but the actual number of open AI-specific roles hasn't kept pace — creating a skills-signaling arms race in resumes.

3. New grad market deteriorating: An April 23 Indeed Hiring Lab report found new graduates face a genuinely difficult market — though outcomes vary significantly by major, institution, and geography. Entry-level tech roles face the steepest competition, while healthcare and skilled trades remain more accessible for new entrants.

Worker Voice

"Is the tech job market recovering, or are we just coping?" — A highly upvoted thread on r/cscareerquestions (339 votes, 207 comments, February 2026) captures the prevailing anxiety: workers with 5 YOE, strong portfolios, and reputable school credentials continue to report months-long job searches and pervasive ghosting, even as occasional headlines about "AI hiring" circulate. The community consensus: recovery narratives are real in narrow AI-adjacent niches but largely invisible to the majority of job seekers.

"The 2026 job market in a nutshell" — A viral r/recruitinghell post (918 votes, 103 comments, January 2026) captured widespread frustration with volatile tech recruiting, describing unpredictable hiring freezes, rescinded offers, and multi-month ghosting as normalized features of the current landscape. Commenters noted that AI is now commonly cited both as the reason for layoffs and as the justification for why companies claim to be hiring — a contradiction workers find deeply disorienting.

Employer candor question resurfaces: r/cscareerquestions is actively debating whether portfolios still matter in 2026, with the community split between those who report projects helping them stand out and those who believe ATS/AI screening filters most applicants before any human sees work samples. The thread reflects a broader uncertainty about what signals actually move the needle in the current market.

What to Watch Next

1. April 2026 Jobs Report (BLS) — May 8, 2026: The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the April nonfarm payrolls report. After March's stalled payroll growth pattern, this report will be closely watched for whether the tech layoff wave is beginning to show up in headline unemployment numbers. USA Today's layoff tracker specifically flagged this release as the next major signal for where the market is heading.

2. Meta May 20 Cut Date: The formal execution of Meta's ~8,000-person layoff on May 20 will likely produce a fresh wave of displaced workers entering the job market, particularly in AI/ML, product management, and software engineering. Watch for downstream effects on recruiter activity and LinkedIn job posting volumes in late May.

3. Weekly Initial Jobless Claims (Thursday, May 7): With layoffs accelerating, weekly jobless claims data will indicate whether the tech wave is beginning to translate into broader unemployment filings or remains contained within severance-buffered corporate exits.

Reader Action Items

1. Add AI skills signals to your profile now, even if your role isn't AI-native: Indeed Hiring Lab data confirms job postings mentioning AI are growing faster than the overall market. Adding concrete AI tool proficiency (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT for workflow, LLM fine-tuning basics) to your LinkedIn and resume increases ATS visibility in a market where AI-adjacent keywords are increasingly gatekeeping even non-technical roles.

2. Don't cold-apply to companies with known hiring freezes — map the landscape first: With 265 tech companies having announced layoffs in 2026, verify a company's current hiring status before spending time on applications. Check TrueUp's layoff tracker and the company's recent press releases before investing in an application. At freezing companies, referrals from existing employees dramatically outperform cold applications.

3. Negotiate total compensation, not just salary: Q1 2026 ECI data shows employer-side non-wage costs (especially insurance) are rising faster than wages. When evaluating offers, request a full breakdown of benefits costs, employer HSA/FSA contributions, and coverage quality — these increasingly differentiate equivalent-salary offers in real take-home value.