How much of it do you believe is real vs excuse vs intended for hype (or anything else you consider appropriate)?
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Sadly, I do see a lot of people with technical experience / degrees out of work, and 6-8 months is quite common as a bare minimum. I even know one person with a PhD that has even out of work since mid-2024. He's been updating his skills, but a lot of the job postings he tried appear to be ghost jobs.
@ma
It’s subjective of course but I don’t think we are choosing bias data on purpose.
I can’t tell you the unemployment rate because my information is limited to a small percentage of people who need background checks but I do one to share something that’s not covered much.
The majority of the “ tech” people who I see unemployed long term were not what we would have traditionally called technical workers.
So sue got laid off from her technical manager job which is bad. But sue graduated with a bs in English and Ms in creative writing and just became a manager because the IT people su-ked at communicating. I honestly do not see a whole lot of very technical people out of work for a long time.
Now if you are older agism might be a factor but if you can explain the difference between transformers and LLMs there’s no way you would be unemployed as of today.
YMMV in what you see.
What do you think is the real unemployment rate? Can next jobs report be negative added jobs?
It appears (which may well be subjective and restricted to the ones I talk to) that the environment is quite worrisome for 90+% of people. What they tell me is that Q4 is going to be tough. Nobody blamed AI.
Trying volunteering for ANYTHING and you will be shocked at the application process.
There are thousands of applicants which tells me a lot of qualified people are not in the labor force.
Source: I maintain the website for applicants who need background checks (nursing homes, schools, anything with children or restricted access).
Be wary of what people call "AI". Design and manufacturing used to employ legions of draftsmen and factory workers to bring stuff to market. They have since replaced a lot of those people with CAD/CAM software.
Software development used to take place with people entering bits and pieces of code on the keyboard, in arcane languages. This still takes place to an extent, but nowadays a lot of CASE tools are used. Every diagramming tool, data dictionary, code generator and testing utility is what a lot of people would consider "AI".
The same sorts of advances are taking place in more pedestrian occupations. Take a look at any housing development, and you'll see an increased use of prefab modules versus dimensional lumber. Staircases, flooring sections, premade bathrooms with plumbing and electrical...all of them can be shipped in and assembled by moderately experienced carpenters. You still see 2x4s and 4x4s, plywood sheets and the like being used, but it's not nearly as common as in the past.
Speaking of home building, have you bought a home lately from any of the major builders? I'm talking Pulte, Lennar, etc. You see a consultant to buy a new house, and they use various web tools, Windows apps, etc. to "design your new house". Once a design is approved, money exchanged, permits approved, etc. all the needed building materials are automatically acquired and shipped to the job site, along with everything needed for the construction workers to do the job. Schematics are generated, component, material and cut lists, etc. There's still a lot of human intervention, but there's a lot of automation in the process.
That's all this "AI" stuff is.
"AI Related Layoffs" is nothing more than the same old labor arbitrage and outsourcing that has been going on for decades. Whatever name you attach to it, the idea is to reduce cost by performing work differently than in the past.
Every trendy business executive has the same dream...bring in lots of revenue as cheaply as possible. They offshored the labor for years, but that strategy is reaching its limits. Executives now want to use advanced versions of Google search and Wikipedia to enable lesser-paid employees to perform meaningful work. Just like the spreadsheet and word processor replaced lots of bookkeepers and secretaries all those years ago, the hope is that "AI" can reduce the need for engineers and developers.
Maybe it will succeed...maybe it won't. Personally, I'm guessing that it won't save IBM.
Sorry to point this but you missed "Alvind's Incompetence" and "Alvind's Immaturity".
I'm sure there are other permutations and combinations also.
Yes layoffs are because of the increase in expense on AI, so they have to cut costs somewhere. Those jobs are not being replaced by AI much though.
It could well mean any of those things soon other than Artificial Intelligence, my pick is ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED (technology).
It may soon change to some of the following options:
As If
Atypically Immature
Always Improving
Amazing Irritation
Artificial Incompetence
Avoiding Inconvenience
Alarming Impact
All of which will also deserve layoffs!
If by AI you mean Actually Indians, then yes, it is very much a real factor driving layoffs.
If I could send you some chocolate for your post, I would. LOL.
You hit the nail on the head 100%.
Benevolent intervention. Not every government's action is a good action. The keyword is exactly what you stated: IMPROVE (THE LIVES OF ITS CONSTITUENTS). They work for us and represent us, not the other way around.
What is the main purpose of Government?
Answer: to maintain and improve the lives of its constituents.
A different way of saying what @a8 said:
Governments will need to step in to stop/adjust this corporate mentality that long-term will hurt all but a select few.
that is all good... what happens when so many people are laid off because of AI and can't find any other jobs? Seems to me there will be a lot less consumers buying the products and services from these companies that think it is wise to cut costs! What is that going to do to these companies top and bottom lines?
As a reminder, about 70% of the GDP is personal consumption, ie. people like you and me that actually spend money buying stuff right and left.
Right now if any company tells stockholders they replaced x number of employees with AI it’s going to be a favorable response and upward pressure on price. IBM lives off of this kind of smoke and mirrors game.
What is the main purpose in corporate America of a company listed on the Stock Exchange.
Answer :- To provide maximum value for shareholders. This means as high profits as possible,
Therefore if AI is cheaper than people resources, and AI can be used instead of people (does not matter how bad the results are), and by using it will potentially improve profits and reduce costs to the business. Then it does not matter if its Real or Excuse,
In some cases it improves, but in most cases its an excuse. And you see more and more jobs lost to AI (drones, robots in manufactoring factories etc), once companies can no longer outsource or full roles with lower cost people