The US economy shed 92,000 jobs in February, a dramatic downturn from analyst expectations that it would add about 50,000 jobs. The shortfall stoked growing fears that AI could be contributing to higher unemployment.

Job analysts Challenger, Gray & Christmas said artificial intelligence was explicitly cited as the reason behind 4,680 job cuts in February, approximately 10 percent of total announced cuts for the month. So far in 2026, AI has been cited as the cause in 12,304 job cut announcements, or 8 percent of job cut plans, they wrote in a blog published the day before the employment numbers were released.

The analysts said in 2025, companies cited AI as the cause of 54,836 announced layoff plans, 5 percent of total cuts during the year. Since 2023, AI has been cited in 91,753 job cut announcements, approximately 3 percent of all layoff plans announced in that period.

“Tech is responding to a number of pressures right now. AI is the big story, but there are also global regulatory concerns, a slowdown in digital advertising driven by tariffs and economic uncertainty, and higher costs to both employ workers and access funding, forcing companies to make difficult decisions,” wrote Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.