- Dell eliminated roughly 11,000 jobs in fiscal 2026 — a 10% workforce reduction for the third consecutive year.
- Total headcount has fallen 27% from 133,000 in fiscal 2023 to 97,000, with $569 million spent on severance in fiscal 2026 alone.
- COO Jeff Clarke launched the “One Dell Way” transformation initiative in January, calling it “the biggest transformation in company history.”
- Dell’s AI-optimized server revenue is projected to double to roughly $50 billion in fiscal 2027, and shares are up 24% this year.
36,000 Jobs Gone in Three Years, No End in Sight
Dell did not announce these cuts in a press release. The numbers surfaced in the company’s 10-K filing for fiscal 2026, showing headcount at 97,000 as of January 31 — down from 108,000 a year earlier and 133,000 in fiscal 2023. The reductions came from “employee reorganizations, restricted external hiring, and facility consolidation,” according to the filing.
The $569 million Dell spent on severance this year is actually lower than the $693 million it paid in fiscal 2025, suggesting a growing share of exits came through attrition rather than forced layoffs. Dell joins Atlassian, Block, and more than 60 tech companies that have cut over 38,000 jobs in 2026 so far. The pattern is the same everywhere: cut humans, invest in AI.
Wall Street Rewards the Pivot, Workers Pay the Price
Investors are not punishing Dell for the cuts — they are rewarding them. The stock is up 24% year-to-date, the board authorized an additional $10 billion share buyback, and the dividend was hiked 20%. Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group posted a 40% revenue increase in fiscal 2026, driven almost entirely by demand for AI servers.
The internal engine behind the restructuring is “One Dell Way,” a company-wide transformation initiative that COO Jeff Clarke announced in January. “This is a comprehensive change, not a gradual transition,” Clarke wrote in an internal memo. “Once we start operating in the new way on May 3, we won’t go back.” Dell expects AI server revenue to double to roughly $50 billion in fiscal 2027 — a bet that the machines replacing those 36,000 jobs will generate far more value than the people who held them.
Dell | @Dell | @JeffClarke
