Stunning new data reveals 140% layoff spike in July, with almost half connected to AI and 'technological updates'

Comments

• blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Almost certainly this is not actually due to AI. Instead, it is due to tarriffs, or unfounded optimism about AI. Smart companies can easily see the coming impact of tarriffs, and are culling their workforce in anticipation. Dumb companies hear about how “AI can do everything”, and are following suit. But telling everyone the layoffs are due to AI doesn’t scare off (most) investors. So stock prices can remain high for another quarter.

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  • suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Agreed. Not just tarriffs, but all of the government layoffs and funding cuts as well. I know a lot of people who have either been laid off, or their coworkers have been laid off, or they’ve had their funding cut and projects terminated in the last 5 months. It’s scary out there, hiring freezes across the board and layoffs every few months as companies are just riding on their capital while waiting for funding to resume, but there’s no sign of it happening any time soon, if ever. My company does mostly government contracting, we haven’t won a single contract in the last 8 months and supposedly we only have a few months of runway left before the big layoffs start. It’s not because contracts are being awarded and we’re just not getting them, it’s because all government spending has been shut off, which has trickle-down effects on thousands of companies across the country. My wife is in a completely different industry but is facing the exact same problems. And none of it has anything to do with AI.

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    • pornemup@lemmynsfw.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Your sample size of 2 is interesting but doesn’t mean much. I’m definitely open to alternative explanations, but I’d like to hear why you don’t find it credible that people report AI being associated with job cuts. I know lots of people on Lemmy have a hard-on for dissing AI, but AI doesn’t even need to be functional for it to be associated with job cuts. In fact, shitty executive decisions would directly explain AI being associated with lots of job cuts.

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• reddig33@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Next year — the summer of rehires after CEOs learn employees can’t really be replaced by AI.

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  • BJ_and_the_bear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s just a pretense to layoff staff and squeeze the remaining employees for more juice. They know it doesn’t work

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    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I don’t know. Some CEOs are pretty stupid

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  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    rehire h1b visa, for less benefits and salary you mean. this was always the endgame. maybe keep around some token more experienced citizens for good pr.

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  • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That is probably true in many case, buy to be fair there are some jobs that have had huge impacts due to LLM’s, like translation.

    These jobs have been changing quite a lot before this AI bubble mainly because advances in speech-to-text, but I see the LLM’s as final step. The translator need doesn’t fully disappear, but the workflow changes quite drastically and some labor heavy parts are going away.

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    • rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We just did a project involving translating a website for multiple regions for a big company. We used a translation service that doesn’t use humans. The Belgian, Dutch, German, French, and Italian team complained that the translation was extremely weird and they had to manually overwrite the automated translations for the majority of the site (at least dozens of thousands of words) before launch.

      We’re still a ways off, judging by that anecdote.

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  • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Mass layoff, hire starving replacements cheaply

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  • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I mean - eventually they will. But how long can the CEOs hold off waiting for it?

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    • regedit@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Not long if the line’s gotta go up and there are shareholder dick’s going soft.

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• AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  This article about Ai driven layoffs was written by Ai, shit is dark.

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  • BrikoX@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Many authors are required to use them whether they like or not. Not sure if that’s the case here though.

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    • AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I absolutely don’t doubt it, but it’s hitting right on the nose of the issue in a way that tickles me.

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• aceshigh@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Wonderful. White collar and blue collar workers are both fucked.

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• queermunist@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I suspect those are a smokescreen for maybe deeper problems.

  Chatbots don’t really reduce the need for staff, but it’s a great excuse.

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  • fox@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Executives are fucking idiots though

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    • FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Chatbots are really good at telling you they can do anything.

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• iAvicenna@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  good luck selling your products to unemployed people

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• salacious_coaster@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  That’ll teach the poors to get all uppity with their living wage demands

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• rayyy@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  No problem. Just fire those data folks.

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• IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  What’s the cause of the most of the layoffs then? Or am I not reading the headline right?

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  • other_cat@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Supposedly, it’s due to AI chatbots replacing the need for as much staff, but I agree with @queermunist@lemmy.ml that the real cause is something else and AI is a smokescreen. Unfortunately, I don’t have any really good answers as to what, so take my comment with a grain of salt.

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