Tech Layoffs Aren’t Slowing down – and Traders Are Betting 2026 Will Be Worse

With input from CNBC, Reuters, the New York Times, Business Insider, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Investor’s Business Daily.

Another day, another round of tech layoffs. This time it’s Coinbase – and if you ask prediction market traders, it won’t be the last headline like this anytime soon.

The crypto exchange said it’s cutting about 14% of its workforce, pointing to a mix of weaker crypto markets and a bigger shift that’s hitting the whole industry: artificial intelligence. Smaller teams, fewer managers, more automation. That’s the direction, according to CEO Brian Armstrong.

Zoom out, and traders are reading this as part of a much larger trend.

On Kalshi, there’s roughly a 92% chance that tech layoffs in 2026 will top last year’s already massive cuts. Over on Polymarket, the odds are only slightly lower, hovering around 87%.

Those aren’t small bets. They’re based on numbers that are already stacking up fast.

The information sector shed 447,000 jobs in 2025. Just three months into 2026, layoffs have already hit 178,000, according to government data. That pace alone is enough to raise eyebrows – and it helps explain why traders are leaning heavily toward another brutal year.

Coinbase fits neatly into a pattern that’s been building for months.

Back in February, Block slashed nearly half its workforce, also citing AI. Meta Platforms cut about 10% of its staff in April while doubling down on AI investments. Amazon trimmed 16,000 corporate roles earlier this year as part of a broader push to streamline operations.

Different companies, same message: do more with fewer people.

Inside Coinbase, that message came through loud and clear. Armstrong told employees that AI is speeding up work in ways that would’ve been hard to imagine a couple of years ago – engineers finishing in days what used to take weeks. The knock-on effect is fewer layers of management and leaner teams, sometimes down to just one person working alongside AI tools.

It’s a shift that’s been creeping in for years, but now it’s accelerating.

And it shows up in the broader workforce numbers. Employment in the information sector has dropped sharply from its post-pandemic peak of over 3.1 million workers. By March, that figure had slipped to under 2.8 million.

For now, markets seem to be taking it in stride. Layoff announcements barely move stocks the way they used to. But underneath that calm, the structure of tech companies is changing – fast.

Prediction markets aren’t always right. Still, when the odds get this lopsided, they tend to reflect something real: a growing belief that the industry hasn’t finished cutting yet.