Google lays off 30,000 people in battle royale, and hundreds of employees have been eliminated by AI!

New Zhiyuan reports

Editor: Editorial Department

Today, Google's chief commercial officer issued a memo announcing another layoff! This time, most of the employees who were "graduated" were eliminated by AI. According to the "State of Technology Recruitment 2024", 21% of programmers are already worried about losing their jobs. According to the IMF report, AI will affect 40% of global jobs.

AI has really come to eliminate humans!

Just a few days ago, Google laid off thousands of employees in its core engineering department, Google Assistant, hardware, and AR departments.

Today, some employees in Google's advertising sales department are also happy to mention "graduation".

Chief Commercial Officer Philipp Schindler's latest memo – "Graduation Letter" to Google employees

Generative AI, which lays off a large number of Google's employees.

The day has finally come.

Google laid off hundreds more people as its advertising division began to enable AI sales

Foreign media described it like this: Google employees are developing AI tools to fire other Google employees.

Today, Google began laying off hundreds of employees from its ad sales team.

The layoffs mainly affected the Key Account Sales (LCS) team, which serves Google's largest advertisers.

Why are so many people laid off or transferred?

Because AI is replacing them.

Recently, Google Ads has begun to integrate a large number of generative AI features.

Chatbots can help people navigate through a large number of advertised products.

Another AI system can create its own advertising assets such as images and text based on the budget and goals given by the ad buyer.

Google's generative AI advertising system works by autonomously remixing and adjusting ads using click-through rates as an instant feedback system.

In the past, humans did the work of providing sales coaching, creating art assets, and deciding on text and layout, but now AI can do these tasks a thousand times a second.

Schindler hinted that the layoffs will primarily affect the large account sales (LCS) department that sells ads to large enterprises, while Google's Customer Solutions team (GCS), which sells ads to smaller customers, will be the "core" ad sales team.

According to Google, the layoffs were the result of a change in the way Google's sales team operates.

It can be seen that although the memo does not mention that AI caused the layoffs, there is no doubt that the recent series of layoffs at Google is the first batch of layoffs caused by generative AI in the industry.

Now, Google still hasn't released a figure for layoffs this year.

But the number of layoffs must have climbed above 1,000 as hundreds of people were laid off last week and hundreds more jobs were cut in the latest round of layoffs.

1 in 5 programmers is afraid of losing their job

Does AI make programmers more productive, or does it make them more risky to lose their jobs?

Recently, CoderPad, a technology recruitment platform, released a report on the "State of Tech Recruitment in 2024", which showed that 21% of developers have very low security security.

In other words, one out of every five developers feels unemployed.

CoderPad surveyed more than 13,000 developers from 149 different countries around the world, and 5,500 HRs from 143 countries

At the same time, there are many people who feel that they are not capable enough to support the possibility of changing jobs.

It seems that both at home and abroad, developers have a sense of crisis.

While worrying, work with AI

However, in the face of the impact of AI, the vast majority (70%) of developers believe that AI-assisted tools can help them do their jobs better. In particular, in the following areas:

- Code assistance

- Learning & Tutorials

- Code auto-completion and generation

- Documentation and API support

Of those, about 67% of developers say they already use AI as part of their work.

One anonymous interviewee said: "I use AI to assist in my code, and I waste time writing code by hand, such as writing fetch functions in Python with different URLs or short scripting tools. 」

As the most out-of-the-circle AI tool, ChatGPT is also the most used by developers, accounting for as much as 60%. Other frequently mentioned AI tools are Copilot, Bard, Bing AI, Midjourney, and many more.

Of the remaining developers, 23% are skeptical, and 6% are even worried that AI will steal their jobs.

Overall, 43.21% were optimists, 27.26% were neutral, and 22.97% were pessimistic.

But the impact of AI on the job market goes far beyond declining earnings and layoffs.

Two days ago, IMF President Kristalina Georgieva said, "40% of the world's jobs will be affected by AI, and AI is really scary, but it's also a huge opportunity for everyone." 」

The domestic job market has set off an AIGC boom

In China, with the popularity of ChatGPT, AIGC, which is known for improving quality and efficiency, has also been popular among employers.

According to the latest "2023 Employment Trend Data Report" released by Liepin, from January to October 2023, the number of positions requiring AIGC not only increased by 179.19% year-on-year, but the recruitment salary is significantly higher than that of equivalent positions without such requirements.

Statistics show that machine vision has the largest salary gap - reaching 62.44%. Among them, the average annual salary of machine vision recruitment requiring AIGC skills is 484,500 yuan, while there is only 298,300 yuan without this requirement.

At the same time, the three positions of pre-sales technical support, key account sales, and graphic design, with or without AIGC skills, will also bring more than 50% salary difference.

For companies, 57.04% would give preference to those candidates with AIGC skills all things being equal.

However, the average number of times that job seekers who indicated that they would use AIGC tools in their resumes were talked to by companies was 7.95 times, which was significantly higher than the 4.76 times that were not specified.

Among them, the algorithm engineer with AIGC skills was indicated as having the highest number of conversations, as high as 15.72 times, 6.21 times more than the same function not indicated.

This is followed by strategic planning/management, new media operations, and industry research.

Data annotation: Talent demand and sense of luxury are improved in both directions

Interestingly, the popularity of AIGC has also led to a significant increase in the demand for "data annotation" jobs, which were previously less closely watched – an increase of 34.43% compared to 2022.

From the perspective of industry distribution, the new jobs are mainly concentrated in the three major industries of the Internet, computer software and artificial intelligence, accounting for 29.65%, 12.7% and 9.96%.

It is worth noting that although the average annual salary of recruitment marked by the data has reached 123,800, the salary of different categories varies greatly, ranging from less than 10,000 yuan to 2-40,000 yuan.

Generally speaking, when it comes to everyday texts and images, the pay is relatively low. Correspondingly, the salary of data labeling in professional fields such as law, medical care, and cross-border e-commerce foreign languages is higher.

In this regard, Li Zhifei, founder and CEO of Mobvoi, said that mastering the skills of AIGC tools is valuable for increasing efficiency, especially for the work of enterprise employees.

While generative AI is highly efficient, it requires human guidance (e.g., with prompts and dialogue) and gatekeeping (e.g., AIGC selection, but also moderate post-editing) to be used safely and efficiently, skills that require continuous learning and practice.

In view of this, job seekers can start learning to use AIGC tools as early as possible, so as to enhance their competitiveness in the workplace and bargaining power in job hunting.

IMF President speaks out: 40% of the world's jobs are affected by AI, but it is also a huge opportunity

In the face of the impact of AI, the International Monetary Fund also said in its latest report that nearly 40% of global employment will be affected.

Of these, 60 percent of jobs will be affected in advanced economies, about 40 percent in emerging markets and countries, and 26 percent in low-income countries.

Half of the jobs affected by AI will be negatively impacted, or some will disappear entirely.

For the other half of the jobs, AI brings more efficiency improvements, and the income level of migrant workers who can embrace AI as soon as possible will also rise.

Specifically, research has shown that AI can help less experienced workers be more productive faster. Younger employees may find opportunities easier to take advantage of, while older employees may struggle to adapt.

If this situation develops further, it will soon polarize incomes: workers who can take full advantage of AI will see higher productivity and wages, while those who can't use AI will have significantly lower productivity than their income.

This will be further exacerbated by the mapping of this situation to the labor market: many jobs affected by AI technology will disappear, and the new jobs created by AI technology will earn more because of the scarcity of personnel.

This macro judgment corresponds to developers and the AI industry, and one of the obvious realities is that developers are becoming more and more worried about their career prospects.

Especially for developers who are just starting out in the industry, because their work is relatively easy to be automated by AI technology, the demand for labor will be reduced, and their income will also be affected.

But for algorithm engineers who develop AI technology, and many of the jobs that have emerged with the Gen AI wave, their incomes and labor needs will continue to rise.

Commenting on the report, IMF President Kristalina Georgieva said, "AI is really scary, but it's also a huge opportunity for everyone. 」

And the IMF chairman's statement was also noisy by netizens on Zhihu's hot search. Indeed, it is difficult to reach a consensus on the impact of AI on employment and the labor market in the short term.

Whether it is singing or embracing AI, there seems to be a sense of truth from all sides, and there is no way to simply think that AI is an opportunity or a challenge for most people.

But one thing is for sure, if AI is really going to bring about a huge change, then those who can embrace AI will definitely have the initiative and an advantage.

Memo from Google's Chief Commercial Officer

Today, Philipp Schindler, Google's chief commercial officer, sent a memo to employees, officially announcing the layoffs.

At GBOLive last month, I introduced our GBO 2024+ strategy. We had a candid discussion about the rapid changes in business realities, the impact of artificial intelligence on us, and how we can further focus on driving growth for our customers and partners.

As part of the meeting, I also made it clear that a major channel shift is coming.

Of course, regular adjustments to the organizational structure according to customer needs, market conditions and available resources are the norm for sound business. This is nothing new for GBO, we have been adjusting over the years, bigger or smaller, and will continue to do so in the future.

Over the past six months, we have implemented strategic realignments across our three teams: Global Partners, gTech, and Global Product Solutions.

Each adjustment is made to meet the challenges and put the needs of customers and partners first. Internally, these changes have accelerated decision-making, streamlined processes, and reduced layers and duplication of effort.

This week, we will be announcing new developments in the LCS and GCS sales operating models. We always strive to match the right customers to the most suitable channels for growth, and provide the best support model and smooth operations.

Every year, we evaluate and adjust customer allocations through rigorous channel management. While this year's adjustments will be larger than usual (similar to 2016 and 2017), it will also leverage the strengths of individual sales teams.

Going forward, GCS will be a core channel for us to expand our growth and serve every customer with precision, while LCS will be committed to delivering transformational growth for our largest and most complex customers."

However, in this shift, hundreds of jobs will be eliminated or put at risk.

We will fully support those affected GBO employees who can apply for open positions on the team or other positions at Google.

Sadly, we will have to say goodbye to many of our talented and high-performing sales colleagues, for which I have instructed the relevant responsible persons to communicate one-on-one with the affected employees.

These conversations will begin in full tomorrow, and we will inform you of the next steps as soon as possible and respectfully to minimize the sense of uncertainty.

I believe we made the right decision for our clients, partners, and even our business, but it will be a difficult experience for a lot of people, especially members of the LCS team.

Thank you all for always supporting each other with empathy, respect, and kindness.

Resources:

https://coderpad.io/survey-reports/coderpad-and-codingame-state-of-tech-hiring-2024

https://arstechnica.com/google/2024/01/google-lays-off-hundreds-more-as-ad-division-switches-to-ai-powered-sales/

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240114-ai-to-impact-60-of-advanced-economy-jobs-says-imf-s-chief