Dell Layoffs by Year: 36,000 Fewer Employees in 3 Years, but Only One WARN Notice Found

Dell layoffs by year, as of November 5, 2026: 10-K headcount fell from about 133,000 in fiscal 2023 to 120,000, 108,000 and 97,000 in fiscal 2026, with $2.44 billion in severance. Dell stated one cut, about 5% in February 2023. Severance reached $488 million from February to July 2026, and we found just one Dell WARN notice.

Dell layoffs year by year: the ledger

Dell’s fiscal year ends on the Friday nearest January 31, so fiscal 2026 ran from February 1, 2025 to January 30, 2026. A “year” below is that fiscal year. Every headcount is the rounded figure from that year’s 10-K, and it is a net number: hires, quits, retirements, sales of businesses and layoffs all sit inside it. Dell gives no count of people laid off.

Severance is “severance charges” from the 10-K note. FY2020 and FY2021 use the restated figures that exclude VMware ($174M and $368M; originally $266M and $452M). FY2017 to FY2019 are as first filed and include VMware. WARN column counts Dell-named notices (workers in parentheses) in states we could read, with windows below. FY2020 means notices dated February 2019 to January 2020.

The staircase, without the VMware illusion

One popular number needs correcting. Final Round AI says Dell cut “68,000 jobs since 2020,” going from 165,000 to 97,000. But the fiscal 2020 10-K says 31,000 of those 165,000 worked for VMware, which Dell spun off on November 1, 2021. Without VMware the fall from fiscal 2020 is 37,000, from 134,000 to 97,000, and that still includes RSA, Boomi and Secureworks, which Dell sold. The steep drop in fiscal 2022, from 158,000 to 133,000, hides a rise: without VMware, staff went from 124,000 to 133,000.

The fall of 36,000 (27%) from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2026, cited across the top search results, is correct as a net figure. It is not a layoff count, and part of it is a divestiture: Secureworks was sold on February 3, 2025, three days after the fiscal 2025 count. Secureworks last reported 1,516 full-time staff, at February 2, 2024, so up to about 1,500 of fiscal 2026’s 11,000 drop may be that sale. Dell does not say whether its count included them.

Meanwhile the business grew. Revenue per employee, our calculation, went from about $769K in fiscal 2023 ($102.3 billion) to about $1,170K in fiscal 2026 ($113.5 billion). The fiscal 2026 10-K attributes lower selling and administrative expense mainly to a decline in headcount.

What changed in 2026: severance rose, and one sentence vanished

First-half severance was $412 million in fiscal 2024, $420 million in fiscal 2025, $334 million in fiscal 2026 and $488 million in fiscal 2027, the largest of the four. The September 2026 10-Q also shows the amount still owed at quarter end at $339 million, against $211 million a year earlier. In the same quarter, research and development took $149 million of the $261 million charge. In the 14 quarters since fiscal 2024 began, that is the only time R&D has been the largest line. R&D’s first-half total of $189 million already beats every full fiscal year from 2020 on, including $130 million in fiscal 2026.

The wording moved the other way. From September 2024 to December 2025, five straight 10-Qs said Dell anticipated its actions would result in further reductions in headcount. The June 2026 10-Q and September 2026 10-Q drop that sentence. They now say Dell expects to “scale operating expenses” through “employee reorganizations” and “limitation of external hiring.” The filings do not explain the edit, and the higher severance means it cannot be read as an end to cuts.

Severance dollars are not heads. A larger R&D line can mean fewer, better-paid people, so the shift says where the money went, not how many left. KORE1 says the 10-K “spells out the order” of cuts as sales, then cost of revenue, then R&D. We read that table: it lists dollars by expense line, with no order of events, and the latest quarter reverses that ranking.

The notice calendar: why WARN barely sees Dell

The count is a floor. Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio and Oregon are among the unread states, and Texas stops at June 23, 2026 in the open-data copy, because the state agency’s own site did not resolve when we tried it on November 5. For comparison, the same kind of files show 7,792 workers since 2024 on our Intel tracker and 2,219 in 2023 alone on our Google year table, and our tech layoffs tracker gives the sector view.

What Dell has actually said

Very little, and that is part of the finding. Dell issues few public statements on job cuts. Of 167 8-Ks since 2016, none uses Item 2.05. Only one reports a workforce reduction: the 8-K of February 6, 2023, furnished under Item 7.01, which says the actions “will result in a reduction of approximately 5%” and that expenses fall in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. Jeff Clarke’s memo, attached to that filing, names Global Sales, Services and ISG engineering, and says “some members of our team will be leaving the company.”

Dell gave no count. About 6,650, as CNBC reported, is 5% of the 133,000 in the 10-K. After that, statements come through reporters: “becoming a leaner company” in August 2024, and “we aren’t going to get into specifics” in August 2025. The 10-Ks repeat one line each year about limiting external hiring and reorganizing employees, which is the only official description of the method.

Press and tracker numbers, labelled

Is AI the reason?

Not in the filings. We split all 15 10-Ks and 10-Qs since March 2023 into sentences and looked for any naming AI or automation along with severance, headcount or layoffs. There were 0. The 10-Qs speak of new technology and business processes in general terms. Final Round AI calls the cuts “AI-driven restructuring,” and a former employee told CRN he believes the AI push redirected sales focus, but Dell has said neither. Our AI layoffs ledger separates employer-stated AI cuts from claims like these.

What this means for MSPs

If you buy or resell through Dell, plan for coverage changes that arrive unannounced, since no public notice is likely to warn you. CRN reported a new-customer sales team of about 150 largely gone in 2025. Keep a dated record of your named account team and support contacts, and ask at each fiscal quarter start, in February, May, August and November, whether they changed.

The R&D line is worth watching for anyone standardized on Dell storage or servers: $149 million of severance in one quarter is a reason to ask your rep for written roadmap dates on products you depend on, not a reason to switch. On the hiring side, a WARN search will not find Dell alumni, so use your own outreach rather than state lists. The next check is the third-quarter 10-Q, which last year arrived on December 9.

Frequently asked questions

How many people has Dell laid off by year?

Dell does not publish layoff counts. Its 10-Ks show net headcount falling by about 13,000 in fiscal 2024, 12,000 in fiscal 2025 and 11,000 in fiscal 2026, to about 97,000. Those are net changes that include attrition and limited hiring, so they are not layoff counts. Only the about 5% cut of February 2023 was stated as a workforce reduction.

Is Dell laying off more people?

Severance charges say yes. They were $488 million from February to July 2026, against $334 million a year earlier, and $261 million in the latest quarter alone. Dell has announced no new round, and the September 2026 10-Q gives no headcount.

What is Dell’s severance package?

Dell has not published a formula in any filing we read. Filings give only the total cost: $569 million in fiscal 2026 and $693 million in fiscal 2025. The February 2023 memo says only that Dell will support those affected. Dollars per head cannot be derived, because the headcount figure is net and pay and tenure vary.

Did Dell file an 8-K for its layoffs?

Once. A February 6, 2023 8-K under Item 7.01 reported a cut of about 5%. None of Dell’s 167 8-Ks since 2016 uses Item 2.05, the item for exit and disposal costs. We scanned every primary 8-K document under Items 7.01 and 8.01 since 2017, and no other describes a workforce reduction.

Why are there so few Dell WARN notices?

We cannot tell from the records. We found one Dell-named notice in the 22 states and DC we could read: 60 workers in Santa Clara, California, in 2019. Federal rules count losses at a single site, generally at least 50 workers and 33 percent of that site, so spread-out cuts may not trigger one. Dell has not explained.

Who usually goes first in Dell layoffs?

Severance dollars show a shift. Selling and administrative lines took 81% of the charge in fiscal 2024 and 33% in the quarter ended July 31, 2026, when research and development took 57%. These are dollars, not people, and pay varies by role.

Methodology

References

1. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2026. Accessed November 2026.
2. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2025. Accessed November 2026.
3. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2024. Accessed November 2026.
4. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2023. Accessed November 2026.
5. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2022. Accessed November 2026.
6. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2021. Accessed November 2026.
7. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2020. Accessed November 2026.
8. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2019. Accessed November 2026.
9. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2018. Accessed November 2026.
10. Dell Technologies 10-K, fiscal 2017. Accessed November 2026.
11. Dell 10-Q, quarter ended July 31, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
12. Dell 10-Q, quarter ended May 1, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
13. Dell 10-Q, quarter ended October 31, 2025. Accessed November 2026.
14. Dell 10-Q, quarter ended August 2, 2024. Accessed November 2026.
15. Dell 8-K, Item 7.01, February 6, 2023. Accessed November 2026.
16. Dell 8-K Exhibit 99.1, Jeff Clarke memo. Accessed November 2026.
17. SecureWorks Corp. 10-K, fiscal 2024. Accessed November 2026.
18. California EDD, WARN reports. Accessed November 2026.
19. Washington ESD, WARN database (copy dated November 2). Accessed November 2026.
20. Texas open data, WARN notices. Accessed November 2026.
21. New York DOL, WARN dashboard. Accessed November 2026.
22. Massachusetts, WARN reports. Accessed November 2026.
23. 20 CFR 639.3, WARN definitions. Accessed November 2026.
24. CNBC, February 6, 2023 (press). Accessed November 2026.
25. KXAN via Yahoo, August 6, 2024 (press). Accessed November 2026.
26. The Oklahoman via Yahoo, August 24, 2024 (press). Accessed November 2026.
27. CRN, August 2025 (press). Accessed November 2026.
28. KORE1, Dell layoffs 2026 (secondary). Accessed November 2026.
29. Final Round AI, Dell workforce (secondary). Accessed November 2026.
30. Careery, Dell layoffs (secondary). Accessed November 2026.
31. Layoffs.fyi, Dell (tracker). Accessed November 2026.
32. LinkedIn article on Dell headcount (search snippet). Accessed November 2026.
33. Reddit r/Layoffs thread (search snippet). Accessed November 2026.