Comment on AI layoffs backfire as cutting staff doesn't cut it, firms warned
i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
This isn’t new. Even before AI, failing companies would use layoffs as a sort of loan on their quarterly numbers. If you lay off your employees, you’re really profitable for as long as you can continue collecting money for the work the employees had already done.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 days ago
I don’t think it is just failing companies that are doing this.
COVID fundamentally broke the relationship of cost of living to the salary of certain jobs. You don’t need to pay salaries for people to live in Silicon Valley or Seattle if everyone in the department is full remote. So, if you are going to keep the job as full remote, you can base the salary on a more average cost of living and cut wages. You can use AI as an excuse for senior staff layoffs for investors, then quietly hire workers in more parts of the world with lower salaries.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Those if us around for the days when offshoribg was done kind of magic pill will remember how it wasn’t. Outsourcing to some guy in Delhi, ohio, doesn’t seem so different; apart from time zone, maybe.
Ai isn’t the cause for this but it certainly was the enabler.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 days ago
Part of the issue with off-shoring was that a lot of the work was contracted to different companies. Nowadays, large companies own the satellite offices so they have better control over the work.
belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 4 days ago
Exactly what’s happening. Job postings specifically exclude larger cities now and low ball the shit out of the offer