A few weeks ago I watched another Microsoft layoff headline scroll past my feed, a few thousand roles gone, framed in the usual careful corporate language, and something clicked that had been bugging me for months.
I work in tech recruitment. For years, a layoff headline told me almost everything I needed to know about a company before I even opened the article: budgets were tightening, growth had stalled, hiring was about to freeze. It was a clean signal. Bad news in, bad news out.
That signal is broken now. And I don't think enough people in this industry have clocked it yet 🤷♀️
The old rulebook doesn't apply anymore
Here's what's strange about 2026. Oracle cut its workforce by 21,000 people over the past year (a 13% reduction) and disclosed it in the same filing where it reported quarterly net income up 27% year-over-year, with remaining performance obligations climbing 325% to $553 billion. That's not a company in trouble. That's a company that just had one of its best years ever, and still walked thousands of people out the door.
