Foreign media: There are more layoffs caused by artificial intelligence than companies are willing to admit

Highlight the point

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  AI-induced layoffs may be more likely than companies have publicly admitted, according to multiple research institutes.

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  In order to avoid unnecessary attention and negative impact, many companies choose to lay off employees in a low-key manner.

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  Many companies are transforming to recruit employees with AI experience through layoffs.

Tencent Technology News According to foreign media reports, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting profound changes in the workplace, but it may lead to more layoffs than many companies are willing to admit.

Carol Thomas, the chief executive of United Parcel Service (UPS), publicly admitted last week that the largest layoffs in the company's 116-year history were due in part to new technologies such as artificial intelligence. For example, she said, machine learning has given salespeople unprecedented autonomy in pricing, reducing reliance on pricing experts.

UPS is just one of many companies that have adopted a "two-step" approach to AI. On the one hand, these companies are showing investors how AI can improve efficiency and reduce costs, while on the other hand, they try to avoid directly linking technology to layoffs that could cause panic in the market and among employees. A UPS spokesperson later clarified that AI would not replace employees, and company executives did not explicitly link AI to layoffs on earnings calls.

BlackRock, the global asset management giant, also announced last month that it would lay off about 600 employees. Although in the memo, the company's CEO Larry Fink and President Rob Kapito acknowledged that new technologies are profoundly transforming the industry, they did not cite AI as the main reason for layoffs. The memo also revealed that the company expects to increase its headcount by the end of the year as part of its business expands.

However, with the rapid advancement of AI technology, it has become increasingly difficult to accurately count how many jobs are being replaced by AI. More than 4,600 U.S. employees have been laid off since May last year as companies realign resources to hire people with AI experience or technology to replace human jobs, according to employment agency Challenger. But Andrew Challenger, the company's senior vice president, warned that the figure "certainly underestimates" the total number of employees actually laid off.

"In the economy, there are probably many more jobs being eliminated because of AI than are attributed to AI or publicly announced by companies. Whenever a company publicly mentions layoffs, it usually causes an uproar in the media. "As a result, most companies prefer to keep a low profile to avoid unwanted attention and negative impact." ”

Last spring, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna revealed in an interview that the company intended to suspend hiring because executives believed many positions would soon be replaced by AI technology. But an IBM spokesperson was quick to clarify that the company did not freeze hiring and planned to keep the headcount steady this year.

However, this remark has caused a lot of discussion in the industry. Johnny Taylor, CEO of the American Society for Human Resource Management, believes that many of these layoffs will happen quietly. In an interview last December, he said: "IBM has been a big hit as an industry leader when it opens up about this strategy. As a result, other companies have opted for a more low-key approach, where they do not announce layoffs, but do so quietly. ”

Taylor noted that many companies may achieve this by drastically reducing hiring. "In three years' time, we're going to see a leaner organization," he predicts. These companies don't need to publicly announce anything to quietly replace your job. ”

According to Challenger's statistics, most of the AI-related layoffs so far have been concentrated in the tech industry. For example, Chegg, a job help site, and Stack Overflow, a programmer community, laid off employees after AI products hit the business. At the same time, companies like file storage service provider Dropbox are racing to transform, laying off employees to make room for new hires with AI skills.

After IBM, only a handful of companies have explicitly linked AI to layoffs or hiring freezes. In December, Klarna, a Swedish buy now, pay later company, announced that it would suspend hiring due to AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT that shorten task completion times. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said: "We need fewer people to do the same job. Therefore, we have decided to pause recruitment to see how it goes. A Klarna spokesperson remained silent for a request for further comment.

In January, language learning software company Duolingo also opted not to renew contracts with about 10% of its contractors. A spokesperson for the company revealed: "We no longer need as many people to do the contractor's work, partly due to artificial intelligence. He added that Duolingo is not freezing hiring, but is actively recruiting all kinds of talent. The change does not involve full-time employees, and the layoffs are not simply "directly replaced" with artificial intelligence, as many full-time employees and contractors within the company have already made extensive use of the technology.

This perception is not unique to Duolingo, and many business executives share similar views. Gallup's survey of Fortune 500 chief human resources officers last year showed that a whopping three-quarters believe AI will replace some jobs at their companies in the next three years. Bob Toohey, chief human resources officer at insurance company Allstate, admitted: "Let's not kid ourselves that jobs will be reduced because of AI. He was referring to the labor market as a whole, not just his company. "There will be job losses, but there will also be more new jobs."

Tuhey noted that in his department, AI will profoundly change the way learning and development teams work, such as training employees to adopt new ways of handling claims. Content production, which used to take three weeks to complete, now takes less than a day with the help of artificial intelligence. "We're in the throes of transformation right now," he admits.

In the tech industry, some executives have warned that AI could replace some jobs, and even Elon Musk has said, "One day, people don't need any jobs anymore." "However, for companies that are introducing AI to their employees, they tend to value the positives more.

Andrew Charench, senior vice president at Challenger, said: "You'll hear a lot of companies emphasize that they're not focusing on eliminating jobs, they're trying to make people's jobs more efficient. But it's clear that there are now many scenarios where with the help of artificial intelligence can do the work of four or five people in a way that would have been unimaginable a year ago. Even though we haven't heard this from the company's major announcements, it's really happening. (Compiled by Golden Deer)