Dell Cuts 10% of Workforce Again in Fiscal 2026

Dell Technologies shed 11,000 jobs in fiscal 2026 — the third year in a row of 10% cuts — bringing total headcount to 97,000 as it restructures around AI.

Dell Technologies has quietly done something very few companies of its size manage three years in a row: cut roughly 10% of its workforce each time and still keep investors happy. Its annual 10-K filing, released on March 17, 2026, confirms the Texas-based tech giant ended fiscal 2026 with approximately 97,000 employees — down about 11,000 from the 108,000 it reported a year prior. Go back to fiscal 2023, and that number was 133,000. In three years, Dell has shed more than 36,000 jobs — a 27% decline in total headcount. The reductions were not announced through a single dramatic layoff event. Instead, Dell has used a quieter playbook: limiting external hiring, reorganizing internal teams, and consolidating facilities. A mix of formal layoffs and natural attrition did the rest. The company characterized it in its filing as disciplined cost management in coordination with our ongoing business modernization initiatives — corporate language, yes, but the underlying shift is straightforward. Dell is spending less on the people who sold PCs and enterprise storage, and more on the infrastructure needed to compete in the AI server market. The financial cost of this transition has been steep. Dell recorded $569 million in severance and related charges during fiscal 2026. That is down from $693 million in fiscal 2025 and $648 million in fiscal 2024 — suggesting the pace of cuts is easing, even if the percentage reduction looks similar on paper. Most of those charges landed in the selling, general, and administrative departments, followed by cost of net revenue and research and development. What makes this story more than a standard round of job cuts is where Dell is directing the savings. The company's Infrastructure Solutions Group — the division that sells servers and storage — posted a 40% revenue increase in fiscal 2026. AI-optimized servers are at the center of that growth, and Dell's management has stated it expects revenue from that segment to double again in fiscal 2027. The company is also returning capital to shareholders at a rate that suggests real confidence in its direction: a 20% increase in its cash dividend and a new $10 billion share repurchase authorization were announced earlier this year. Dell's stock has climbed roughly 24% in 2026 so far. The broader picture behind these numbers is a company going through one of the most significant internal transformations in its history. COO Jeff Clarke has described the One Dell Way initiative — set for a key rollout on May 3, 2026 — as the biggest operational overhaul the company has ever undertaken. The goal is to consolidate Dell's various internal systems into a single unified platform, breaking down the silos that have built up across decades of acquisitions and organic growth. For employees who remain, the message from leadership has been clear: adapt, retrain, and prepare for a more AI-driven way of working. Dell is not operating in isolation.The broader tech sector has shed tens of thousands of jobs in early 2026. Amazon has already cut 16,000 employees this year and is reportedly weighing further reductions. Block, the fintech company founded by Jack Dorsey, slashed half its workforce. Atlassian cut 4,000 jobs. Meta is reportedly considering a reduction of up to 20% of its global staff. The pattern across these companies is consistent: AI spending is rising, and the operational headcount that supported legacy businesses is falling. For Dell specifically, the calculus is a familiar one for any company making a platform transition. AI servers carry thinner margins than traditional enterprise products because the cost of specialized components — particularly the Nvidia GPUs that power them — is high. To protect profitability while growing in that market, Dell needs its cost base to shrink. The workforce cuts are, in that sense, directly tied to the AI investment strategy rather than being separate from it. What that means for the 11,000 people who left Dell this fiscal year is a different matter. Severance payments have run into the hundreds of millions for three consecutive years. The company's remaining workforce is smaller, leaner, and increasingly oriented toward a business model that looked very different just five years ago. Whether Dell's bet on AI infrastructure pays off at the scale management is projecting will determine whether this extended period of cuts ultimately looks like smart strategy or painful downsizing for its own sake. For now, Wall Street is giving Dell the benefit of the doubt. The stock performance and the forward guidance suggest investors believe the company knows what it is doing. But with 36,000 fewer employees than it had in 2023 and a $569 million severance bill in a single year, the human cost of this transformation is written clearly in the numbers.