Tech layoffs: what our hiring data actually shows
Level does not track layoffs.
No source we ingest reports headcount reductions, and we will not guess. What follows is the closest honest proxy we can compute from our own catalog of job postings: how fast each category is opening new roles, how many postings closed on boards that are still active, and which companies’ boards stopped responding entirely. A closed posting may mean the role was filled, not that anyone was laid off — we cannot tell the difference, so we don’t claim to.
Measured September 21, 2026, last 30 days vs the 30 days before that. How we measure
Hiring pace by category
New postings opened in the last 30 days, compared with the 30 days before that. Sorted by the steepest drop first.
| Category | Last 30d | Previous 30d | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 3,045 | 1,691 | +80% |
| Legal | 226 | 114 | +98% |
| Product | 707 | 326 | +117% |
| Research | 239 | 95 | +152% |
| Software Engineering | 5,670 | 2,165 | +162% |
| Healthcare | 168 | 61 | +175% |
| Marketing | 1,106 | 386 | +187% |
| Operations | 1,476 | 496 | +198% |
| Customer Support | 599 | 190 | +215% |
| Finance | 636 | 195 | +226% |
| Security | 385 | 116 | +232% |
| HR | 426 | 122 | +249% |
| Data | 1,063 | 250 | +325% |
| Design | 530 | 117 | +353% |
| Content | 331 | 21 | +1476% |
| Education | 40 | 16 | not enough data |
| Data Annotation & AI Training | 6 | 11 | not enough data |
Postings that closed
10,475 postings were removed from an active company’s board in the last 30 days. Filled or withdrawn, we cannot tell which.
- Software Engineering: 2,577
- Sales: 1,336
- Operations: 651
- Data: 633
- Marketing: 581
Companies whose board went dark
13 companies we track no longer respond on their careers page (three failed checks in a row). That can mean a hiring freeze, a site migration, or nothing at all — we only know the board stopped answering.
- Hexsince September 18, 2026
- Postmansince September 16, 2026
- Anyscaledate unknown
- Binancedate unknown
- Doctolibdate unknown
- Ledgerdate unknown
- Lovabledate unknown
- Neondate unknown
- Qontodate unknown
- Secureframedate unknown
- Too Good To Godate unknown
- Too Good To Godate unknown
- Warpdate unknown
Method: categories exclude uncategorized postings. Hiring pace compares live and closed postings by posted_at across two equal 30-day windows; a percentage is only shown when the earlier window has at least 20 postings, otherwise the sample is too small to read as a rate. Closed postings are ATS-sourced roles removed from a still-active company’s board, not paid listings that simply expired after 30 days. Dark boards are companies marked inactive after repeated failed checks on their applicant tracking system. Counted September 2026. Levels and sourcing follow our method.