---
title: "The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-layoff-wave-is-becoming-a-powder-keg-hjywzunxa
source_url: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/15/the-ai-layoff-wave-is-becoming-a-powder-keg
type: article
source: "TechCrunch"
published: 2026-06-15T07:30:12.966Z
updated: 2026-06-15T07:30:42.832Z
tags: ["ai", "ai-coding"]
reading_time: 6
upvotes: 111
comments: 14
language: en
---

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# The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg

**[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 6 min read · 111 upvotes · 14 comments

## Summary

Tech companies are laying off tens of thousands of workers at a record pace — nearly 150,000 so far this year — while citing AI as the primary reason. Critics, including Marc Andreessen, argue AI is a convenient cover story for pandemic-era overhiring. The situation is made more volatile by the simultaneous minting of enormous AI-driven wealth: Cerebras's IPO created billionaires, SpaceX's public debut may create thousands of millionaires, and Anthropic and OpenAI approach trillion-dollar valuations. Meanwhile, laid-off workers face rising healthcare costs, soaring home prices, and a cost-of-living crisis. The piece draws parallels to the post-2008 Occupy Wall Street backlash, warning that the optics of companies growing richer via AI while using it to justify mass layoffs could ignite significant social and political backlash.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/15/the-ai-layoff-wave-is-becoming-a-powder-keg>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@elmarchavez** · 6 upvotes

> As I'm reading, I realized that if there is abundance of money on one side, there will always be an equivalent (or even more) loss of money on the other. If this becomes parallel to the 2008 crash, then let's just hope the job market recovers faster. I'm going to lie if I say it does not annoy me in any way slightest. But thinking that the market is always dependent on what millionaires and billionaires have to say can be frustrating at times.

**@bob72** · 5 upvotes

> All the companies that provided all these `become a developer/tester` in 6 months trainings created a number of useless "engineers", I think those must go. But companies are laying off real experts, that is the problem. I find it very hard to find good engineers now in hundreds of CVs from those people who can barely code and do not know basics.

**@starfallcodes** · 3 upvotes

> the slopocalipse is aproaching

**@paulmarc** · 3 upvotes

> While layoffs might contain 2 types of people, both are detrimental to society.
>
> - Type 1: Over-hiring (pandemic, booming industry without proper planning).
> - Type 2: Experts "replaced" by AI.
>
>
> Type 1 are the poor souls that will become unemployed but with no/few skills to get re-hired, and society will bleed big time.
>
>
> Type 2 experts will leave craters of gaps of knowledge and potentially will get re-hired (for significantly more if they're smart) and this wave of layoffs might have a silver lining in the end (for Type 2).

**@deepjoshi\_dev** · 1 upvotes

> Because of ai I started learning Google ads and meta ads in order to launch my own brand someday when I get fired or maybe voluntally resign.

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