--- title: "Workday cuts 142 at HQ while selling agents that automate hiring" description: "A second WARN notice takes Workday's 2026 headquarters cuts to 296, in a quarter when Bay Area tech layoffs fell 62%. The same week brought a Gartner grade for its hiring agents and a Jefferies target cut, five days before its analyst day." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Labor" published: 2026-10-08T23:19:11.360Z modified: 2026-10-08T23:19:11.360Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/workday-cuts-142-at-hq-while-selling-agents-that-automate-hiring language: en keywords: "Workday, Layoffs, AI Agents, Software, California" --- # Workday cuts 142 at HQ while selling agents that automate hiring > A second WARN notice takes Workday's 2026 headquarters cuts to 296, in a quarter when Bay Area tech layoffs fell 62%. The same week brought a Gartner grade for its hiring agents and a Jefferies target cut, five days before its analyst day. ## A second layoff notice at headquarters [Workday](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/workday) has [told California's Employment Development Department](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/10/07/economy-tech-jobs-workday-layoff-pleasanton-bay-area-meta-oracle-work/) that 142 workers at its Pleasanton headquarters will lose their jobs on November 30, permanently [1]. It is the second headquarters notice of 2026, after 154 jobs ended on April 6, and it takes this year's Pleasanton total to 296, on top of 617 in April 2025 [1]. *Chart: **Workday's headquarters tranches are smaller this year, but keep coming** Column chart of Workday's Pleasanton headquarters WARN filings: 617 jobs in April 2025, 154 in April 2026 and 142 more set for November 30, 2026.* *Jobs cut in Workday's Pleasanton headquarters WARN filings, by notice date. The two 2026 notices take the year's headquarters total to 296. Source: California EDD WARN filings via the Mercury News, October 7, 2026. [1]* Workday has not linked the filings, but the notice lines up with [the round it disclosed on September 29](https://theinference.org/article/workday-cuts-500-staff-mostly-product-and-holds-every-profit-guide-except-gaap): about 2.5% of the workforce, roughly 525 people, mostly from the product and technology team that builds the software [2][3]. That was the second companywide cut of 2026, after about 400 jobs in February, and neither announcement named AI as a catalyst [2]. ## The Bay Area is cutting less. Workday is not Bay Area tech companies disclosed 3,043 job cuts in the third quarter, down 62% from the second quarter's 7,962 and level with the first quarter's 3,029, state filings show [1]. The year still tops 14,000 cuts, 38% ahead of all of 2025 [1], but the regional tide is receding. A new headquarters tranche against that tide is a Workday choice, not a market one. *Chart: **Bay Area tech job cuts fell 62% in Q3 from Q2's spike** Column chart: Bay Area tech job cuts disclosed by quarter in 2026, 3,029 in Q1, 7,962 in Q2, 3,043 in Q3.* *Job cuts disclosed by Bay Area tech companies in California WARN filings, by quarter, 2026. Source: California EDD WARN filings as reported October 7, 2026. [1]* ## A prize for the agents, a haircut for the forecast [Gartner's inaugural quadrant for AI agents in human resources](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/workday-named-market-shaper-2026-180300764.html) named Workday a Market Shaper on Thursday, and the company claims those agents automate 95% of frontline hiring [4]. Jefferies [kept its hold rating and cut its target to $210 from $220](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/workday-faces-slower-growth-widening-164500502.html), waiting for subscription growth above 11% [5][7]. Workday has already lowered its own fiscal 2028 targets: subscription growth to 11%, from 13% to 14%, and operating margin to 33% from 35%, after four years of slowing growth [5]. ## Ten percent by 2028, and a thinner bench Jefferies expects 10% growth by 2028, the slowest of the back-office majors, on backlog up 14% against [SAP](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/sap)'s 26% [5]. AI recurring revenue is about $600 million, 6% of the total [5]. Revenue growth has slid from 16.7% in late 2023 to 12.8% in the July quarter [6], and the chief executive, chief revenue officer and chief technology officer have all left inside eight months [5]. *Chart: **Revenue growth has slid from 18% to below 13%, and Jefferies sees 10% by 2028** Line chart: Workday year-over-year revenue growth by quarter, from 16.7% in Q3 2023 and a peak of 18.2% in Q1 2024 down to 12.8% in Q2 2026.* *Year-over-year total revenue growth by quarter, calendar-quarter labels, from Workday's SEC filings; the annotation is Jefferies' 2028 projection, not a reported figure. [6]* [Workday's own research, published on October 5](https://theinference.org/article/workday-ships-a-report-saying-ai-won-t-cut-jobs-a-week-after-cutting-500), found 40% of business leaders expect AI to get more from the staff they have, against 28% expecting cuts [7]. Workday says its agents resolve complex payroll questions in under a minute [4]; 142 of the people who build that software learned this week that their jobs end on November 30 [1]. ## The bull case, and where it breaks Aneel Bhusri, the cofounder running Workday again, [says he has yet to meet a customer replacing the company](https://www.businessinsider.com/workday-conducting-layoffs-software-product-tech-team-2026-9) [2]. Workday says AI drove more than a quarter of new contract value last quarter, and that more than 5,500 customers run a Workday-built agent [3]. Bank of America analyst Tal Liani put the risk plainly: Workday bills by the employee, and "AI decouples the value of the solution from the number of seats" [3]. So the sides are set: headquarters staff pay now, holders pay if seats stop carrying the bill, and the agent platform and Google, [whose Gemini Agent reads Workday records without copying them](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4651345-google-reveals-gemini-agent-ready-to-work-for-enterprises-from-single-box-prompt), take the other side [8]. Rising, Workday's analyst day on October 13, is where the pricing answer falls due [3][5]. ## Takeaway A second WARN notice takes Workday's 2026 headquarters cuts to 296 even as Bay Area tech layoffs fall 62%; the same week brought a Gartner grade for its hiring agents and a Jefferies target cut, five days before an analyst day where the per-seat question falls due. ## Sources 1. [Mercury News, "Pace of Bay Area tech layoffs slows as Workday reveals new job cuts", 7 October 2026](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/10/07/economy-tech-jobs-workday-layoff-pleasanton-bay-area-meta-oracle-work/) 2. [Business Insider, "Workday is doing another round of layoffs", 29 September 2026](https://www.businessinsider.com/workday-conducting-layoffs-software-product-tech-team-2026-9) 3. [TheStreet, "Workday's axe falls again, and this time it lands on the tech team", 1 October 2026](https://www.thestreet.com/employment/workday-layoffs-tech-team-ai-shift) 4. [Workday press release via PR Newswire/Yahoo Finance, "Workday Named as a Market Shaper in the 2026 Gartner Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Agents in Human Resources", 8 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/workday-named-market-shaper-2026-180300764.html) 5. [Proactive via Yahoo Finance, "Workday faces slower growth and widening gap with software peers: Jefferies", 8 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/workday-faces-slower-growth-widening-164500502.html) 6. [Workday, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 8 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001327811) 7. [Workday press release via MarketScreener, "Workday Global Workforce Report: AI Is Rewriting Jobs More Than It's Cutting Them", 5 October 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/workday-global-workforce-report-ai-is-rewriting-jobs-more-than-it-s-cutting-them-ce785dd8d889ff22) 8. [Seeking Alpha, "Google reveals Gemini Agent ready to work for enterprises from single box prompt", 8 October 2026](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4651345-google-reveals-gemini-agent-ready-to-work-for-enterprises-from-single-box-prompt) --- Workday cuts 142 at HQ while selling agents that automate hiring — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/workday-cuts-142-at-hq-while-selling-agents-that-automate-hiring