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

From tech to airways, giant international corporations have been slashing workers because the real-world influence of synthetic intelligence performs out, spooking staff. However critics say AI has develop into a straightforward excuse for companies trying 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 assist 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 acknowledged that it’ll progressively 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 may be extra to job cuts than meets the attention.

Beforehand there might have been some stigma connected to utilizing AI, however now corporations are “scapegoating” the know-how to take the autumn for difficult enterprise strikes similar to layoffs.

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

Corporations can basically place themselves on the frontier of AI know-how to look modern and aggressive, and concurrently conceal the actual causes for layoffs, in response to Stephany.

“There may be numerous different the explanation why corporations 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 corporations that flourished through the pandemic “considerably overhired” and the current layoffs may simply be a “market clearance.”

“It is to some extent firing those who for whom there had not been a sustainable long run perspective and as a substitute of claiming “we miscalculated this two, three years in the past, they will 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 submit that AI adoption is at a “a lot slower tempo” than is being claimed and in giant firms “there’s not a lot occurring” with AI tasks even being rolled again as a consequence of price or safety considerations.

“On the similar time there are bulletins of massive layoff plans ‘due to AI.’ It seems like an enormous excuse, in a context the place the economic system in lots of international locations is slowing down, regardless of what the unbelievable efficiency of inventory exchanges recommend,” stated Bouglé, who co-founded Genuine.ly.

Jasmine Escalera, a careers professional, stated this concealment is “feeding the worry of AI” with staff globally involved about their jobs being changed because of AI.

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

Escalera stated massive corporations must be extra accountable as they set the tone for what is the norm in enterprise choice 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 assist circumstances and eradicated the necessity to “backfill assist engineer roles,” they stated.

“We have efficiently redeployed a whole lot of staff into different areas like skilled providers, 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 folks in two years however “AI is simply a part of that story.”

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

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 Price range 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 information from November 2022 to July 2025 utilizing a “dissimilarity index” which measured how a lot the occupational combine—the share of employees in numerous 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 companies “don’t level to vital reductions in employment” throughout the providers and manufacturing trade within the New York–Northern New Jersey area.

It discovered that 40% of service companies stated they have been utilizing AI this 12 months, up from 25% final 12 months, whereas manufacturing companies noticed an analogous soar from 16% final 12 months to 26% this 12 months, however only a few have been utilizing AI to layoff employees.

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

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

Stephany stated there is not a lot proof from his analysis that exhibits giant ranges of technological unemployment as a consequence of AI.

“Economists name this structural unemployment, so the pie of labor shouldn’t be sufficiently big for everyone anymore and so folks will lose jobs positively due to of AI, I do not assume that that is occurring on a mass scale,” he stated.

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

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

“It allowed for the emergence of fully new jobs. If you concentrate on the web 20 years in the past, no one 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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