The tech sector is pouring billions of dollars into AI. But it keeps laying off humans::The tech sector has kicked off the new year with a spate of fresh job cuts that are coming at the same time as the industry is doubling down on investments into artificial intelligence.
That would make sense if the companies laying off people were at all related to those kinds of markets that depend on the traffic you describe for survival. Most people that I know including me were layed off from companies that sell B2B stuff or solid things that are always on need independent of those factors. The common excuse used is that everyone was hiring a lot to catch the good talent that others were firing.
What I see is just all businesses using an excuse of “oh everyone is doing it, let’s do it too” independent of if it’s really necessary or not.
It’s going to be different for every company, but as someone who is close to the numbers and is in the rooms listening to the execs freak out, and is close to others in similar roles, a lot of tech layoffs are being blamed on pandemic over-hiring.
And I can attest to hiring a shit load in 2020 / 2021. It was kind of bonkers. There were lots of opening, not a lot of candidates, and as a candidate you could negotiate insane salaries. It reminded me of the dot com boom days of the late 90’s.
It’s a “perfect storm” combining both post-covid effects and shiny new thing effects