White-Collar Jobs Are Disappearing as AI Starts to Bite

wsj.com

9 points·aswegs8··4 comments

I just don't believe AI is causing all of these layoffs. I've used all of the latest AI tech. Sure it provides value, but I just can't see it replacing entire positions yet.

I think it's a combination of outsourcing (communication technology like Zoom got much better during Covid and companies learned they could hire someone for a remote job anywhere) and correcting all of the over-hiring these companies did during the 2 or 3 years of Covid.

Companies right now are also reducing their budgets due to future economic forecasting. The company I'm working for just had an all hands meeting where they want to fire the 3rd party company working on a current systems launch set to go live in February and have the internal team work on it (nobody on staff has experience with the technology), and still make the deadline.

I'm skeptical as well. AI can make some granular components within employee workflows much faster, but cannot takeover entire jobs, and not all tasks can be tackled with AI. Maybe the argument is the workforce can do more with less, but even so, it seems difficult to believe all these layoffs can be attributed to that.

I don't see much evidence that this is being driven by AI rather than economic uncertainty (low consumer confidence, looming threat of tariffs etc.) and the lingering effects of the end of ZIRP.

https://archive.is/20251029102757/https://www.wsj.com/econom...

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