Corporations are blaming AI for job cuts. Critics say it’s a ‘good excuse’

From tech to airways, massive world firms have been slashing workers because the real-world impression of synthetic intelligence performs out, spooking staff. However critics say AI has turn into a straightforward excuse for corporations seeking to downsize.

Final month, tech consultancy agency Accenture introduced a restructuring plan that features fast exits for employees that are not first capable of reskill on AI. Days later, Lufthansa stated it was going to get rid of 4,000 jobs by 2030 because it leans on AI to extend effectivity.

Salesforce additionally laid off 4,000 buyer help roles in September, saying that AI can do 50% of the work on the firm. In the meantime, fintech agency Klarna has lowered workers by 40% because it aggressively adopts AI instruments.

Language-learning platform Duolingo has said that it’ll steadily cease counting on contractors and use AI to fill the gaps.

The headlines are grim, however Fabian Stephany, assistant professor of AI and work on the Oxford Web Institute, stated there could be extra to job cuts than meets the attention.

Beforehand there could have been some stigma connected to utilizing AI, however now firms are “scapegoating” the expertise to take the autumn for difficult enterprise strikes reminiscent of layoffs.

“I am actually skeptical whether or not the layoffs that we see at present are actually resulting from true effectivity positive aspects. It is quite actually a projection into AI within the sense of ‘We will use AI to make good excuses,'” Stephany stated in an interview with CNBC.

Firms can primarily place themselves on the frontier of AI expertise to seem progressive and aggressive, and concurrently conceal the true causes for layoffs, in accordance with Stephany.

“There could be varied different the explanation why firms are having to eliminate a part of their workforce … Duolingo or Klarna are actually prime candidates for this as a result of there was overhiring throughout Corona [Covid-19 pandemic] as nicely,” the professor stated.

Some firms that flourished in the course of the pandemic “considerably overhired” and the latest layoffs may simply be a “market clearance.”

“It is to some extent firing folks that for whom there had not been a sustainable long run perspective and as an alternative of claiming “we miscalculated this two, three years in the past, they’ll now come to the scapegoating, and that’s saying ‘it is due to AI although,'” he added.

This sample has sparked dialog on-line. One founder, Jean-Christophe Bouglé even stated in a preferred LinkedIn put up that AI adoption is at a “a lot slower tempo” than is being claimed and in massive firms “there’s not a lot taking place” with AI initiatives even being rolled again resulting from value or safety considerations.

“On the similar time there are bulletins of huge layoff plans ‘due to AI.’ It seems to be like a giant excuse, in a context the place the financial system in lots of nations is slowing down, regardless of what the unbelievable efficiency of inventory exchanges counsel,” stated Bouglé, who co-founded Genuine.ly.

Jasmine Escalera, a careers knowledgeable, stated this concealment is “feeding the concern of AI” with staff globally involved about their jobs being changed on account of AI.

“So we already know that staff are scared as a result of firms should not being trustworthy, open and communicative about how they’re implementing AI,” Escalera instructed CNBC Make It. “Now firms are overtly stating ‘We’re doing this [layoffs] due to AI’ so it is feeding the frenzy.”

Escalera stated huge firms have to be extra accountable as they set the tone for what is the norm in enterprise resolution making and keep away from greenlighting “unhealthy habits.”

A Salesforce spokesperson clarified to CNBC that the corporate deployed its personal AI agent, Agentforce, which lowered the variety of buyer help circumstances and eradicated the necessity to “backfill help engineer roles,” they stated.

“We have efficiently redeployed tons of of staff into different areas like skilled companies, gross sales, and buyer success,” the Salesforce spokesperson added.

Klarna directed CNBC to its co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s feedback on X the place he defined that the corporate shrank its workforce from 5,500 to three,000 individuals in two years however “AI is barely a part of that story.”

Siemiatkowski linked the workforce discount to slimming down its analytics group to 1 “success group,” with many then leaving by pure attrition in addition to the discount of the corporate’s buyer success group.

Lufthansa and Accenture declined to touch upon the matter and didn’t share any additional particulars on their AI restructuring technique. Duolingo didn’t reply to CNBC’s request for remark.

The Funds Lab, a non-partisan coverage analysis middle at Yale College, launched a report on Wednesday which confirmed that U.S. labor has really been little disrupted by AI automation because the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

The lab examined U.S. labor market knowledge from November 2022 to July 2025 utilizing a “dissimilarity index” which measured how a lot the occupational combine—the share of employees in several jobs—has shifted since AI’s debut and in contrast it to different technological shifts such because the introduction of computer systems and the web. It discovered that AI hasn’t but brought on widespread job losses.

Moreover, New York Fed economists launched analysis in early September which confirmed that AI use amongst corporations “don’t level to vital reductions in employment” throughout the companies and manufacturing business within the New York–Northern New Jersey area.

It discovered that 40% of service corporations stated they have been utilizing AI this yr, up from 25% final yr, whereas manufacturing corporations noticed an analogous leap from 16% final yr to 26% this yr, however only a few have been utilizing AI to layoff employees.

Just one% of the companies agency reported AI as the explanation for shedding employees prior to now six months, down from 10% that had laid off employees utilizing AI in 2024. In the meantime, 12% of companies corporations stated AI made them rent much less employees in 2025.

Against this, 35% of companies corporations have used AI to retrain staff and 11% have employed extra because of this.

Stephany stated there is not a lot proof from his analysis that exhibits massive ranges of technological unemployment resulting from AI.

“Economists name this structural unemployment, so the pie of labor shouldn’t be large enough for everyone anymore and so individuals will lose jobs undoubtedly due to of AI, I do not assume that that is taking place on a mass scale,” he stated.

He added that considerations about expertise placing an finish to human work might be seen all through historical past.

“It reoccurred this century alone a dozen occasions, you possibly can return to historical occasions the place Roman emperors put maintain to sure machines as a result of they have been anxious about this and at all times the opposite occurred. The machine made firms, industries extra productive.

“It allowed for the emergence of completely new jobs. If you consider the web 20 years in the past, no person would have recognized what a social media influencer is, what an app developer is as a result of it did not exist.”

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