Extra firms are saying AI-driven layoffs from Salesforce to Accenture.
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From tech to airways, massive world firms have been slashing employees because the real-world impression of synthetic intelligence performs out, spooking staff. However critics say AI has turn into a simple excuse for companies 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 mentioned it was going to eradicate 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 diminished employees by 40% because it aggressively adopts AI instruments.
Language-learning platform Duolingo has acknowledged that it’s going to regularly 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, mentioned 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 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 at present are actually resulting from true effectivity positive factors. It is somewhat actually a projection into AI within the sense of ‘We are able to use AI to make good excuses,'” Stephany mentioned in an interview with CNBC.
Firms can primarily place themselves on the frontier of AI know-how to look modern and aggressive, and concurrently conceal the true causes for layoffs, in accordance with Stephany.
“There could be varied different the reason 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 effectively,” the professor mentioned.
Some firms that flourished in the course of the pandemic “considerably overhired” and the current layoffs may simply be a “market clearance.”
“It is to some extent firing those that 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’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 mentioned in a well-liked 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 occurring” with AI initiatives even being rolled again resulting from price or safety issues.
“On the identical time there are bulletins of massive layoff plans ‘due to AI.’ It seems 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 recommend,” mentioned Bouglé, who co-founded Genuine.ly.
Feeding the concern of AI
Jasmine Escalera, a careers knowledgeable, mentioned this concealment is “feeding the concern 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 firms will not be being sincere, open and communicative about how they’re implementing AI,” Escalera informed CNBC Make It. “Now firms are brazenly stating ‘We’re doing this [layoffs] due to AI’ so it is feeding the frenzy.”
Escalera mentioned huge firms should be extra accountable as they set the tone for what is the norm in enterprise resolution making and keep away from greenlighting “unhealthy conduct.”
A Salesforce spokesperson clarified to CNBC that the corporate deployed its personal AI agent, Agentforce, which diminished the variety of buyer assist circumstances and eradicated the necessity to “backfill assist engineer roles,” they mentioned.
“We have efficiently redeployed a whole lot 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.
Mass AI layoffs will not be right here
The Price range Lab, a non-partisan coverage analysis heart at Yale College, launched a report on Wednesday which confirmed that U.S. labor has really been little disrupted by AI automation for the reason that 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 companies “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 companies mentioned 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.
Just one% of the companies agency reported AI as the rationale for shedding employees previously six months, down from 10% that had laid off employees utilizing AI in 2024. In the meantime, 12% of companies companies mentioned AI made them rent much less employees in 2025.
In contrast, 35% of companies companies have used AI to retrain staff and 11% have employed extra because of this.
Stephany mentioned there is not a lot proof from his analysis that reveals massive ranges of technological unemployment resulting from AI.
“Economists name this structural unemployment, so the pie of labor will not be sufficiently big for everyone anymore and so individuals will lose jobs positively due to of AI, I do not assume that that is occurring on a mass scale,” he mentioned.
He added that issues about know-how placing an finish to human work may 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 fearful 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 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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