US Tech and Finance Shed 28,000 Jobs a Month as AI Adoption Accelerates

3 articles · Updated · The Straits Times · Jul 2

Payrolls in US information and financial-activities industries have fallen by an average 28,000 jobs a month in 2026, even as the broader labor market added more than 113,000 jobs monthly through May.
Almost 102,000 announced job cuts have been attributed to AI so far this year, and tech companies plus major banks including JPMorgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have increasingly cited the technology in workforce reductions.
Finance looks especially exposed because office and administrative roles make up about a quarter of employment in the sector—the highest share among major industries—and many of those jobs are considered highly automatable.
Economists say AI's labor impact is still emerging more through slower hiring and attrition than unusually large layoffs, though California unemployment-claim data already show elevated stress among workers in AI-exposed finance, information and professional-services jobs.
That leaves the macro picture mixed: June payrolls are still expected to show solid overall gains, but workers such as laid-off Citigroup engineer Bill Matonte are already feeling the disruption.