Data current as of August 29, 2026. Numbers on this page snapshot the JobShift dataset on the date above; the AI hiring view and AI layoffs view refresh continuously as new job postings and WARN filings land.
Seven states, one pattern
California, Washington, and New York lead the country in AI hiring in 2026 — and they also lead the country in AI-attributed layoffs. The dataset's next tier of high-AI-hiring states looks structurally different. Texas, Massachusetts, Colorado, Virginia, Washington D.C., Georgia, and Ohio each recorded meaningful 2026 AI hiring activity with zero or near-zero AI-attributed layoff clusters on file.
| State | AI hiring postings (2026 YTD) | AI-attributed layoff clusters | AI-attributed layoff workers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 1,117 | 0 | 0 |
| Massachusetts | 586 | 0 | 0 |
| Colorado | 402 | 1 | 61 |
| Washington D.C. | 249 | 0 | 0 |
| Virginia | 245 | 1 | 691 |
| Ohio | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| Georgia | 191 | 0 | 0 |
Five of the seven have no AI-attributed layoff cluster on file at all. Colorado and Virginia each have exactly one small cluster, not zero, which is the distinction behind "almost no" rather than a blanket claim of zero.
The pattern decomposes into four companies
Four defense-technology AI startups — Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Saronic, and Helsing — account for a majority of the combined 2026 AI hiring across all seven states: 1,706 of 2,990 postings, or 57 percent.
The concentration is uneven by state. Ohio's AI hiring is 94 percent attributable to these four companies (nearly all Anduril Industries). Massachusetts sits at 82 percent (nearly all Anduril Industries). Georgia is 58 percent. Texas, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington D.C. each fall between 43 and 48 percent, split across Shield AI, Saronic, and Anduril Industries, with Washington D.C. also showing meaningful hiring from OpenAI, Scale AI, and Anthropic.
| State | Top hiring company | Postings from top company |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | Shield AI | 266 |
| Massachusetts | Anduril Industries | 480 |
| Colorado | Crusoe | 192 |
| Virginia | Anduril Industries | 92 |
| Washington D.C. | Shield AI | 76 |
| Ohio | Anduril Industries | 188 |
| Georgia | Anduril Industries | 110 |
None of Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Saronic, or Helsing has a single layoff event on file in the JobShift dataset — not an AI-attributed layoff, not any layoff of any kind, at any date. That is consistent with each company being a young, still-scaling defense-technology firm that has not yet reached a layoff cycle, rather than evidence that defense-focused AI hiring is inherently more stable than the AI labor market at large.
What the dataset does and does not confirm
The framing "these states are safe from AI layoffs" is not supported by this data.
Company age is a plausible confound, not a controlled comparison. Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Saronic, and Helsing are venture-backed defense-technology startups founded substantially more recently than Amazon, Meta, or Microsoft — the three companies responsible for the majority of AI-attributed layoff workers nationally in 2026, all multi-decade public companies that have been through multiple restructuring cycles. A state whose AI hiring mix skews toward younger companies will mechanically show fewer layoffs than a state whose mix includes companies old enough to have had one. Whether these four startups avoid layoffs as they mature is not something the 2026 data can answer.
WARN Act reporting thresholds truncate the small end of the layoff distribution. WARN filings generally apply to layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single site, so a defense-technology startup with a few dozen employees in a given state could lay off staff below that threshold without appearing in this dataset at all, meaning a state's zero-recorded-layoffs count reflects WARN-reportable layoffs, not necessarily every layoff that occurred.
Defense-technology hiring is not representative of AI hiring broadly. Roles at Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Saronic, and Helsing skew toward hardware, autonomy, and government-contracting functions rather than the software and applied-AI roles that dominate hiring at California-concentrated firms, so extending this pattern to a claim like "AI hiring is safer in Texas than in California" would require a hiring-mix comparison this dataset does not support.
What the pattern does show
Seven states combine substantial 2026 AI hiring with an absence, or near-absence, of AI-attributed layoffs on file. A majority of the seven states' combined hiring traces to a small set of younger defense-technology AI startups, none of which has any recorded layoff, though the concentration is uneven by state, ranging from 43 percent in Washington D.C. to 94 percent in Ohio. The concentration mechanism explains most of the pattern; it does not establish that AI hiring in these states carries less downside risk than AI hiring in California, Washington, or New York, where the AI-attributed layoffs cluster around older, larger employers.
Live per-company data
The state-level snapshot on this page reflects the JobShift dataset on August 29, 2026. For current activity as new postings and WARN filings land:
- The AI hiring view shows current AI-role postings with company and state breakdowns.
- The AI layoffs view shows AI-attributed layoffs with monthly totals and per-company detail.
- The state pages show combined hiring and layoff activity for any individual state.
- The methodology page documents the AI-attribution logic applied to layoff and hiring events.