Major American companies have announced plans to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Their staffs were actively growing during the Covid pandemic, but now a significant part of the investment is being absorbed by artificial intelligence.
Major American companies have announced plans to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Their staffs were actively growing during the Covid pandemic, but now a significant part of the investment is being absorbed by artificial intelligence.
According to the Financial Times, Amazon, UPS, Dow, Nike, Home Depot and other companies have said they will cut more than 52,000 jobs, with several saying they need to downsize their organizations due to prolonged economic uncertainty and the need to invest in artificial intelligence.
“Companies are increasingly discussing layoffs and seem eager to use artificial intelligence to cut labor costs,” said David Mericle, chief economist at Goldman Sachs in the US.
Many companies expanded rapidly after the pandemic began in 2020, driven by the rise of online shopping and government programs that encouraged hiring. Now the labor market is stagnant due to uncertainty over trade and artificial intelligence.
“While we are seeing an increase in layoffs at established companies, the number of layoffs over the past year has not been unusually high, especially compared to pre-pandemic levels. One reason these signals seem contradictory is that hiring is happening much more slowly than we have seen before,” said Felix Aidala,
Companies that have carried out the latest round of layoffs have largely said they are cutting jobs to make organizations more compact and efficient.
Amazon recently announced 16,000 job cuts worldwide, the second major wave of layoffs in the past three months, driven by restructuring after a massive hiring spree during the pandemic and the aggressive rollout of artificial intelligence tools.
