Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Friday, July 3, 2026
Microsoft Expected to Cut Up to 5,700 in Xbox, Sales, Consulting
Microsoft is expected to eliminate up to 5,700 positions—roughly 2.5% of its approximately 228,000-person workforce—in a new round of cuts targeting Xbox gaming, sales, and consulting divisions. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma sent employees a “reset” memo as the company grapples with declining console revenues; Microsoft recently raised Xbox prices by $100 to $150 worldwide. The reductions, anticipated as early as the week of July 7, follow a voluntary buyout program in which about one-third of eligible employees participated. In 2025, Microsoft eliminated approximately 15,000 roles across multiple rounds. The company’s stock has fallen roughly 19% over the past month.
Sources: Fox Business Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Tech Accounts for Nearly a Third of All U.S. Layoffs in H1 2026
Technology companies cut 139,156 jobs in the first half of 2026, an 83% surge from the 76,214 tech layoffs recorded in the same period a year earlier, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Artificial intelligence was cited as a cause in 101,743 of all U.S. job cuts through June—approximately 23% of the national total—making AI the leading stated reason for workforce reductions for four consecutive months. Tech accounted for nearly a third of all 443,604 U.S. layoffs recorded in H1 2026. The sector shed 15,503 jobs in June alone.
June 2026 Jobs Report: Economy Adds Just 57,000 Jobs
The U.S. economy added just 57,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in June 2026, falling well short of the 115,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones and marking a significant softening in labor market momentum. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%, but largely because the labor force participation rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 61.5%, its lowest level since March 2021. Prior months were also revised downward: April by 31,000 and May by 43,000, a combined reduction of 74,000 jobs. Professional and business services led gains at 36,000, while leisure and hospitality shed 61,000 jobs.
AI Coding Startups Adopt Radical Recruiting: Bootcamps, Work Trials, Token Burn
A growing cohort of AI coding startups is abandoning résumés and LeetCode tests in favor of unconventional recruiting methods. Cursor uses unpaid multi-day work trials on real codebases, with CEO Michael Truell personally scouting GitHub and other platforms for engineers. Kilo Code holds weeklong overseas bootcamps—one Amsterdam session yielded five hires. Rocket, backed by Accel, asks candidates to share their weekly AI token burn rate as a proxy for adoption. Replit and Base44 rely on public GitHub projects over formal applications. Cognition, valued at $26 billion, sent its head of people on a cross-world flight to meet a single candidate in person.
Sources: Business Insider Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
HR Still ‘Experimenting at the Margins’ on AI, Not Redesigning Work
Most HR departments are still “experimenting at the margins” with artificial intelligence rather than fundamentally redesigning how work gets done, according to a July 2 report from the Institute for Corporate Productivity. After surveying more than 1,300 global business and HR leaders, i4cp researchers found that even as workplaces move past “isolated AI use cases,” implementation remains a “series of disconnected experiments.” Organizations with a strong AI culture reported 4.5 times the HR impact compared to peers—and were more likely to actively coach managers on AI adoption—suggesting the gap between leaders and laggards is widening fast.
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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