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Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

huijzer.xyz

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Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#41

Post by vitus »

rv3392 wrote: post #19
huijzer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It requires an accounting perspective on the inflows and outflows of an ongoing process and not just a small slice of data. Correct, but we don't have that information so we have to rely on a best guess. We're not dealing with code here where everything is known exactly. > Yet, the main question for actually measuring the (firm and investor expected) impact of AI is whether that rate of headcount growth has changed…

> Yes, this is something concrete that I can agree on. But how would you prove that given that we don't have access to that data? Without that data you can't really draw any conclusion can you? For all we know companies are hiring a higher percentage of American workers now. All we know from the data shown is that companies are hiring some new H1-B holders and retaining a lot of existing H1-B holders.

> given that we don't have access to that data?

Actually, we do have some of that data. You can just look at the H-1B employer datahub, filter by Google (or whichever other employer you want to scrutinize), and then look at the crosstab.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...

Looking at Google specifically, I observe two things:

1. The number of new approvals has gone down drastically since 2019 (2019: 2706, 2020: 1680, 2021: 1445, 2022: 1573, 2023: 1263, 2024: 1065, 2025: 1250). (These numbers were derived by summing up all the rows for a given year, but it's close enough to just look at the biggest number that represents HQ.)

Compared to the overall change in total employees as reported in the earnings calls (which was accelerating up through 2022 but then stagnated around 2025), we don't actually see much anything noteworthy.

2. Most approvals are either renewals ("Continuation Approval"), external hires who are just transferring their existing H-1B visas ("Change of Employer Approval"), and internal transfers ("Amended Approval").

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#42

Post by efitz »

sfn42 wrote: post #32
steveBK123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate America really thinks we are that stupid

Looking at who you elected (twice!!) I don't know how wrong they are.

The man who just instituted a policy requiring companies to pay $100k per H1-B visa?

Maybe US voters aren’t so stupid after all.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#43

Post by dakiol »

deadbabe wrote: post #12
nis0s wrote: post #8

The hard truth for Americans (I am talking about Americans because most of these are large cap US companies) is that other countries are cheaper for the following reasons: 1) Companies can find comparably trained and educated workers in non-US countries at cheaper rates because the U.S. education system doesn’t discriminate against less performant students. The education systems in many other countries are competitiv…

Go ahead and hire exclusively cheap foreign engineers. See where it gets you.

That depends on what kind of “cheap” engineers you hire.

If the SV engineers make 250K, you can hire: a) cheap engineers for 150K euro or, b) cheap engineers for 50K euro

I can tell you that the engineers in group A are top notch, nothing to envy the SV ones… and yet they are cheap for american companies.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#44

Post by soulofmischief »

sfn42 wrote: post #32
steveBK123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate America really thinks we are that stupid

Looking at who you elected (twice!!) I don't know how wrong they are.

Friendly reminder that America is not a single person, but a very large country filled with many different opinions.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#45

Post by jeremyjh »

agentcoops wrote: post #7

I think this interpretation of the data rests on a misunderstanding of how a firm conceives of headcount. You saw this a lot during Covid layoffs when the press tried to point out the contradiction between hiring X number of people at the same time as firing Y number of people. Wasn't the firm just staying in place? Yet, in fact, the firm had planned to hire Z people that year, a number much greater than X, greater s…

Without knowing how many beneficiaries were approved in prior years we don't even know if there is a net increase in H1Bs. They have to be renewed every few years.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#46

Post by agentcoops »

huijzer wrote: post #24
rv3392 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, this is something concrete that I can agree on. But how would you prove that given that we don't have access to that data? Without that data you can't really draw any conclusion can you? For all we know companies are hiring a higher percentage of American workers now. All we know from the data shown is that companies are hiring some new H1-B holders and retaining a lot of existing H1-B holders.

> Without that data you can't really draw any conclusion can you? We're not dealing with software here. It's not black and white. We can try to make best guesses and then try to support it by evidence or reject it by evidence. A theory that is presented is that H1-B appear to replace US workers, but you are encouraged to provide another theory by using evidence. > All we know from the data shown is that companies are…

Of course it’s not black and white: it’s the very fact that there are so many possible explanations of the current changes that makes pretending data supports a given explanation more than another when it doesn’t so misleading. There’s no doubt that offshoring and H1-B hiring is an important trend — as it has been since the 1990s, NAFTA etc. We don’t need this article to tell us that. The difficult question is whether AI is actually introducing a new dynamic into the situation. The article suggests it isn’t. All I’m arguing is that, whether or not the conclusion is ultimately true, the data presented does not shed light on this important question.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#47

Post by Scarblac »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #16
agentcoops wrote: post #7

I think this interpretation of the data rests on a misunderstanding of how a firm conceives of headcount. You saw this a lot during Covid layoffs when the press tried to point out the contradiction between hiring X number of people at the same time as firing Y number of people. Wasn't the firm just staying in place? Yet, in fact, the firm had planned to hire Z people that year, a number much greater than X, greater s…

What you describe is certainly possible, but it's not what's happening. You can go on Blind, Fishbowl, any work related subreddit, etc. and hear the same story over and over and over - "My company replaced half my department with H1Bs or simply moved it to an offshore center in India, and then on the next earnings call announced that they had replaced all those jobs with AI". There's a reason why "AI = Actually India…

The US is getting outcompeted by India, basically.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#48

Post by athrowaway3z »

I'm more of the belief that:

- Layoffs would have happened anyway, natural cycle of shedding underperformers.

- the current crop of graduates have too little AI experience from their education, and too little practical experience to be useful in an industry re-arranging itself.

- the average developer quality (i.e. boot camps & curriculum) has dropped the value of "a developer" from a manager's perspective, up to the point that an average Actual Indian is competitive (even when accounting for the communication overhead/loss).

Combined, that shows fewer people on the books, which they'll obviously frame in the best light; i.e. frugal & good management + innovative AI.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#49

Post by jeremyjh »

Havoc wrote: post #11

I don't see how the data presented necessarily leads to anything remotely close that conclusion with any real confidence. If anything the biggest H1B user - amazon - seems to have done negligible layoffs.

Yes, without knowing H1B beneficiaries in prior years its impossible to even conclude they've had a net add of them, since they have to be renewed every few years. I'm sure there are some net adds, but we have no idea how many.

Re: Companies are lying about AI layoffs?

#50

Post by ttoinou »

sfn42 wrote: post #32
steveBK123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate America really thinks we are that stupid

Looking at who you elected (twice!!) I don't know how wrong they are.

Maybe you don’t understand what happened and you should study this more instead of believing you’re smarter than those electors
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