[mancerayder]

It doesn't matter if the main reason is they over-hired. Financial services is going to eat it up, there are eyes going wide all over the place in the C-suites, I am certain. Companies/Funds that own other companies see an opportunity to reduce input costs (human costs). Even if over-hiring and AI are both explained reasons, the second one is going to win out as it's a narrative that lines up with what their goal is, to reduce costs.

Now the question is will that sustain? Are 50% of us doomed? Is it temporary, and a reversal will take place? Will it start and sputter?

[izacus]

"over-hired" seems like mostly copium of engineers being very afraid that their company will discard them like this and are trying to rationalize why they won't follow.

[Aurornis]

There was obvious over-hiring in the couple years after COVID while interest rates were low. A lot of companies corrected and laid off staff when that stopped.

This was before LLMs writing code was a daily discussion topic. Blaming every layoff on AI is mostly people connecting trending headlines together.

[mjr00]

I don't think it's copium because it doesn't really matter if it's due to AI or COVID-era ZIRP-infused overhiring. If your company hasn't done multiple rounds of layoffs since 2022, they're going to come.