Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Tech Cuts Total 4,442 in Week of September 9; Amazon, TikTok Among Latest
Tech sector job cuts hit 4,442 workers for the week ending September 9, according to Crunchbase and SkillSyncer layoff trackers. Amazon disclosed it is reducing its workforce in Bellevue, Seattle, and Sumner, Washington, with separations beginning in October. TikTok separately announced it is cutting 325 U.S. employees, closing its Nashville office and reducing headcount in Washington state. The 2026 running total now stands at 209,032 workers across 365 layoff events. Half of those events — affecting 172,044 workers across 183 companies — cited artificial intelligence automation or replacement as a contributing cause.
Sources: Crunchbase / SkillSyncer
BLS: Total Employer Compensation Costs Hit $49.46 Per Hour in June 2026
Employers paid civilian workers an average of $49.46 per hour in total compensation in June 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey released September 9. Wages and salaries accounted for $33.85 per hour while benefit costs averaged $15.61. Among private industry workers, total compensation averaged $46.89 per hour, with benefits representing 30 percent of the total. Full-time private sector employees cost employers $54.00 per hour compared with $25.20 for part-time workers. State and local government workers averaged $66.45 per hour. Starting with the December 2026 release, BLS will remove workers’ compensation costs from the survey.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
AI/ML Tech Postings Surge 101% Year-Over-Year as Retail Emerges as Hiring Leader
Job postings for artificial intelligence and machine learning roles grew 101 percent year-over-year in August, leading all tech categories, according to the Dice August 2026 Tech Jobs Report released this month. Total tech job postings climbed 18 percent year-over-year even as monthly volume slipped two percent. Retail emerged as the top industry gainer, posting 18 percent month-over-month growth driven by demand for AI systems managing pricing, inventory, and customer service. Illinois grew 11 percent and California 9 percent month-over-month. Seventy-eight percent of tech leaders surveyed by Robert Half plan to add permanent headcount in the second half of 2026.
SAP, Workday, ADP Among September HR Tech Partnership Activity
A wave of enterprise HR technology integrations landed this week. Match2 Universal Candidate Profile went live on the SAP Store, adding AI-powered candidate matching to SAP SmartRecruiters and SAP Talent Solutions deployments. PageUp deepened its integration with Sapia.ai, enabling its text-based conversational AI to evaluate all job applicants automatically; both companies hold ISO 42001 certification for responsible AI. Remote achieved Workday Certified Integration status for its employer-of-record offering, simplifying global hiring data flows. ADP and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic cloud partnership to accelerate artificial intelligence and agentic innovation across ADP’s more than 1.1 million clients in 140 countries.
Sources: HR Tech Feed
Agentic AI and Responsible AI Top 2026 Tech Skills Surge
Employer demand for skills in autonomous AI systems is outpacing nearly all other categories in the technology labor market. Responsible AI, AI Agents, Agentic AI, and Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure each grew more than 200 percent year-over-year in August, according to the Dice August 2026 Tech Jobs Report. The skill cluster reflects a shift from using AI tools toward building and governing the AI systems that power them. Enterprise Integration and Database Software are growing alongside these skills, indicating demand for infrastructure work needed to deploy AI at scale. AI Product Manager postings grew more than 150 percent month-over-month.
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