Chris Adams4d ago
“A Resume.org survey of 1,000 hiring managers found that 59% say they emphasize AI’s role in layoffs because it “is viewed more favorably by stakeholders than saying layoffs or hiring freezes are driven by financial constraints.” Only 9% said AI had fully replaced any roles. This is not a technology story; it’s a management honesty story that happens to involve technology.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-03-13/the-ai-washing-of-job-cuts-is-corrosive-and-confusing
Show threadCharlie Stross4d ago

@acdha The article goes on to add, tellingly:

“We’re restructuring around AI” is a growth signal. “We over-hired during the pandemic and revenue softened” is an accountability signal.

Translation: the "AI is coming for your jobs" narrative is mostly based on a misreading of (lying) press releases about job cuts caused by an oncoming recession.

https://archive.is/20260313093508/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-03-13/the-ai-washing-of-job-cuts-is-corrosive-and-confusing

Show threadRootWyrm 🇺🇦

@cstross the "over-hired" part is also total lies, and always has been. Everyone at the orgs KNOWS it's a total lie and they're still desperately understaffed and almost none of them hired ANYONE for any position.

It's all just bullshit excuses to try and pretend the train didn't leave the rails 15 months ago and there's absolutely no hope of getting it back on them.
One contact said their company is internally forecasting at 2x worse than 2008. Which I said is still laughably optimistic.

Mar 15 at 3:47pmWeb
Show threadAlper Çuğun-Gscheidel4d ago
@rootwyrm @cstross I’m sure Twilio is going to do worse but also can anybody explain to me why there were 8000 people working there?
Show threadRootWyrm 🇺🇦4d ago
@alper @cstross assuming that's a serious question, very fucking easily. Because just like every other "look at me I'm a STAFF+ engineer from GOOGLE" bunch of fucking idiots, they designed and built everything based on what a company with 100,000 employees would do and then went on an acquisition spree of completely unrelated products. So 8,000 people is barely enough to keep the lights on.
Show threadAlper Çuğun-Gscheidel4d ago
@rootwyrm @cstross You should forgive me for thinking they have a huge device farm and manually type in the texts we send.
Show threadCharlie Stross4d ago
@rootwyrm @alper Google over-hired in part because they had bags of money to burn and by over-hiring they could keep all the best talent off the market, i.e. away from potential upstart competitors.
Show threadRootWyrm 🇺🇦4d ago
@cstross @alper also because Google is an absolutely fantastically incompetent management stack top to fucking bottom. Toxic and just completely and utterly incapable of doing their jobs or ensuring jobs get done properly. Because why would they care? They have a monopoly. They have 'prestige.' They can disperse the stack ranked people out and infest the world with their horseshit, making companies try to do with 2 what takes them 200.
Show threadGraydon4d ago

@rootwyrm @cstross Yup.

The interconnectedness of all things is real like momentum and gravity and the absence of mercy. No amount of narrative about good or bad or reasons renders it subject to narrative, and a certain minimum sanity on the part of those making large decisions turns out to have been load-bearing for the entire system.

This is going to be a lamentable time.

Show threadThe Doctor4d ago
@rootwyrm @cstross Over-hiring was indeed bullshit. When people still believed COVID was real there was a net loss of employees because folks were dying of it (or being disabled by it, later on) and replacements were not hired.
Show threadCharlie Stross4d ago
@drwho @rootwyrm Er, you know COVID *is* real and it's still killing people right now? Did you forget your sarcasm /s tag?
Show threadThe Doctor4d ago
@cstross @rootwyrm There probably should have been a /s there, yes. I'm still booting up. I was referring to the folks I keep running into since.. 2023, I think... Who claim that COVID was never actually a thing and "are glad I don't have to pretend anymore." Everywhere from western Pennsylvania to Texas to New Hampshire to Virginia to California.
Show threadCharlie Stross4d ago
@drwho @rootwyrm These people are idiots.
Show threadThe Doctor4d ago
@cstross @rootwyrm Yes, they are. They need extended courses of percussive therapy.