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

From tech to airways, massive international firms have been slashing employees because the real-world affect of synthetic intelligence performs out, spooking workers. However critics say AI has develop into a straightforward excuse for corporations trying to downsize.

Final month, tech consultancy agency Accenture introduced a restructuring plan that features fast exits for staff that are not first capable of reskill on AI. Days later, Lufthansa mentioned it was going to remove 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 employees by 40% because it aggressively adopts AI instruments.

Language-learning platform Duolingo has said that it’ll step by step 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 is likely to be extra to job cuts than meets the attention.

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

“I am actually skeptical whether or not the layoffs that we see presently are actually because of true effectivity beneficial properties. It is relatively 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.

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

“There is likely to be numerous different the reason why firms are having to do away with 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 mentioned.

Some firms that flourished throughout the pandemic “considerably overhired” and the current layoffs would possibly 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 preferred LinkedIn put up that AI adoption is at a “a lot slower tempo” than is being claimed and in massive companies “there’s not a lot occurring” with AI initiatives even being rolled again because of value 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 economic system in lots of international locations is slowing down, regardless of what the unimaginable efficiency of inventory exchanges counsel,” mentioned Bouglé, who co-founded Genuine.ly.

Jasmine Escalera, a careers professional, mentioned this concealment is “feeding the worry of AI” with workers globally involved about their jobs being changed on account of AI.

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

Escalera mentioned 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 “dangerous conduct.”

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

“We have efficiently redeployed lots of of workers 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 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 Finances 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 staff 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 precipitated widespread job losses.

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

It discovered that 40% of service corporations mentioned they had been utilizing AI this yr, up from 25% final yr, whereas manufacturing corporations noticed an identical soar from 16% final yr to 26% this yr, however only a few had been utilizing AI to layoff staff.

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

In contrast, 35% of providers corporations have used AI to retrain workers and 11% have employed extra in consequence.

Stephany mentioned there is not a lot proof from his analysis that reveals massive ranges of technological unemployment because of AI.

“Economists name this structural unemployment, so the pie of labor shouldn’t 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 instances, you’ll be able to return to historic instances the place Roman emperors put maintain to sure machines as a result of they had been fearful about this and all the time the opposite occurred. The machine made firms, industries extra productive.

“It allowed for the emergence of solely 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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