AI as a real impact or more as an excuse?
Either? Both? The question is too zoomed-out. It's going to be different for each company and maybe different for each round of layoffs.
2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
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Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the business cycle, mostly. During the pandemic, low interest rates drove a boom in risk investing that flowed downhill into tech company balance sheets. Of course everyone used the money to hire lots of developers and engineers - probably more than were needed for the business opportunity they were exploiting. I think AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than the cause. Companies don’t have the cash…
And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?
Many companies really got bloated during COVID. From what I can see online, Meta doubled their number of employees between 2019 and 2022. How long does it take to correct from that amount of hiring?
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#13And Meta has another round coming, soon the only thing left at the company will be data center staff. Apparently 20% to be laid off soon. https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/meta-planning...
Surprised it took this long. I feel bad for the employees, but I can’t remember the last success they had. Metaverse, VR, throwing absurd money at AI and for what?
Mark Zuckerberg is no longer the kingmaker that he was during Facebook's peak, and he is desperately trying to create the next platform to be the one in power once again.
It would be sad if it wasn't so unbelievably destructive to everything it touches.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the business cycle, mostly. During the pandemic, low interest rates drove a boom in risk investing that flowed downhill into tech company balance sheets. Of course everyone used the money to hire lots of developers and engineers - probably more than were needed for the business opportunity they were exploiting. I think AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than the cause. Companies don’t have the cash…
And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?
It takes time to correct 10 years of ZIRP, plus COVID overhiring that doubled the headcount of those 10 years in just 2-3.
The jig was up when social media like Reddit and tiktok during the pandemic was full of posts with big tech workers gloating about getting hired for six figure salaries to sleep in and play video games at home while putting in 2 hours of work a week, obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together that it was a too-good-to-be-true unsustainable bubble that's gonna pop and trigger a brutal reset on the job market.
Further reinforced with Elon firing 80% of Twitter and the website didn't stop working, reminding big tech CEOs that they can also start looking into trimming the overhiring fat in their back yard, with no operational loss.
Reinforce that with wall street rewarding mass layoff with share price going up, contrary to the pandemic rewards of shares going up with over hiring, and you have the perfect storm.
AI and the idea of it replacing jobs, has nothing to dow with this, it's just 10 years of ZIRP reawarding every unprofitable bullsit SaaS start-up, and 10 years of "just learn to code bro" where every shoeshine boy became a coder so now tech companies hiring are spoiled for choice.
Edit: Oh I forgot, add to that the increased of offshoring to places with cheaper labor thanks to the normalisation of remote work making it an even perfecter(is that a word?) storm on why an average programmer's labor has way less value.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the business cycle, mostly. During the pandemic, low interest rates drove a boom in risk investing that flowed downhill into tech company balance sheets. Of course everyone used the money to hire lots of developers and engineers - probably more than were needed for the business opportunity they were exploiting. I think AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than the cause. Companies don’t have the cash…
And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?
I mean hell we are still feeling the impacts of 2008 crash and monetary policy.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#16[dead]
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#17Cutting layers of bureaucracy not replacing with AI
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I’m down for that. There are so many “facilitators” in middle management, some really good and quite a few bad ones and many making no difference. I don’t know how people thought they were good positions to hire for.
Remember before Covid many a company deadweight showing us the vast amounts of unwork they did at their companies on their YouTube videos? Proudly showing how idle they were?
Not all the firings are deadweight but a lot are. There is also a general tightening of budgets and people who are part of dead-end programs that are being let go. When the economy was hotter companies would keep these people to add at the margins; I think now that money is still tight they’re not keeping that luxury.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the business cycle, mostly. During the pandemic, low interest rates drove a boom in risk investing that flowed downhill into tech company balance sheets. Of course everyone used the money to hire lots of developers and engineers - probably more than were needed for the business opportunity they were exploiting. I think AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than the cause. Companies don’t have the cash…
And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?
In a very real sense these are still ripples from the death of Franz Ferdinand.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#19[dead]
AI
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#20AI as a real impact or more as an excuse?
It’s the business cycle, mostly. During the pandemic, low interest rates drove a boom in risk investing that flowed downhill into tech company balance sheets. Of course everyone used the money to hire lots of developers and engineers - probably more than were needed for the business opportunity they were exploiting. I think AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than the cause. Companies don’t have the cash…
There is never just one cause, but I do think AI is one of them.
Not in some AI "dey took er jerbs" kind of way, but because businesses are turning their investment focus towards AI-related ventures, like building data centres, and away from investments that require tech workers. Non-residential construction jobs, for example, have surged.