Job Seekers Are Worried About AI Overtaking

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Out of 286,679 planned layoffs for this year, only 20,000 were linked to automation, but 75 are explicitly tied to AI implementation. “Far less is happening than people imagine,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at the consultancy, referring to the impact of AI on the workforce. Though many experts say the current era of AI is affecting the job market in other ways. Many companies are under tremendous pressure and stress to cut costs because of the general uncertain economic environment from Trump’ tariff policy and the concern about rising inflation. Some companies are diverting spending that would usually be going to hiring more employees and shifting it toward AI software.

There are also firms creating the AI tools themselves and others who are looking to purchase and deploy to automate their workforces. AI is not causing major job cuts because they are doing someone else’s jobs, it’s actually the budget and demands on the bottom line that are changing. CEO Satya Nadella said recently that as much as 30% of the company’s code is being written by AI. Bloomberg News confirmed this in a report showing software engineering roles made up more than 40% of the roughly 2,000 positions cut from the recent layoffs.

Analysts with the consultancy Capital Economics said not all mentions of AI by businesses should be taken at face value. “For some firms, AI is a way to spin job losses driven by poor financial performance in a more positive light.”

It is important to add that AI is also affecting the hiring and recruiting process. A massive amount of startups now offer tools that can perform the job of entire HR departments, such as scanning resumes to interviewing candidates.