Reposted by hcv \ʕ•⌔•ʔ/
Similarly, the impact of AI on employment remains a threat rather than a reality -- as does the wide-scale creation of AI-related jobs, which to date tend to be precarious, low-paid data curation gigs.
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![Layoffs.fyi list over 130,000 tech employees that lost their jobs in 2026 so far, compared to 122,000 in 2025. While that sounds like a lot (and it is), it’s still far less than the number of tech firings in 2023 (256,000) and in 2024 (roughly 153,000).
And a lot of those layoffs have been in companies most keenly exposed to the AI bubble. Microsoft cut 4,800 roles in July of this year — or around 2.1% of its global workforce. This followed several waves of firings across 2025, with 15,000 jobs cut.
Oracle famously eliminated 21,000 positions earlier this year, and while it cited the cause of these redundancies as being down to “the adoption and deployment of AI technologies across [its] operations,” few, if anyone believes that excuse.
Shortly before Oracle announced its firings, TD Cowen suggested that by eliminating between 20,000 and 30,000 positions, Oracle could increase free cashflow by between $8 billion and $10 billion. Given Oracle’s hefty spending commitments related to the infrastructure it’s building for OpenAI, it desperately needs that extra money.
We’ve seen the emergence of a new term, “AI washing,” to describe job layoffs that are attributed to the emergence and adoption of AI technologies, when the real cause is far more likely something else — like current US trade policy, or the fact that interest rates are still markedly higher than they were during the boom days of Silicon Valley, or the fact that these companies over-hired during the pandemic and are now forced to rationalize their headcount.
If we look at the broader macroeconomic data, there’s very little evidence to suggest that AI is causing widespread layoffs.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qc6xzgctorfsm35w6i3vdebx/bafkreie4q2wu2hb7wtge4uqplzqzdiuopyse23ez6mpwa65zqz3ifzrw5y)
