Layoffs aren’t caused by AI efficiency.

Efficiency is how CEOs justify being still able to run (no, GROW) their company with 40% less people. Besides AI, there are the dear old “you have to work harder” efficiency (see: 996 culture) and the organizational efficiency where they are all “removing managerial layers, enabling quicker execution” (see Amazon for instance).

See how these things became all fashionable again at the same time with tech company CEOs? It’s because they are just excuses and hopes, at this point. And AI is the least bad-sounding of them, because it smells like progress, magic and automation (while even the most rabid of investors will recognize that working employees to death doesn’t scale beyond the limited numbers of hours there are in a day).