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Microsoft and Meta announce large staff reductions as they spend big on AI
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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What?
Layoffs are never about productivity. If AI was making workers more productive (it is not, in fact) you would simply enjoy the increase output of your existing workforce or maybe even hire more people for even more potential growth.
No no. This is about money. They are laying people off because they are trying to make the balance sheet look better next quarter.
This assumes there's the aggregate demand needed to absorb your increased product output. If there are no more sales or higher prices, it means workers would be sitting doing nothing for longer due to the increased productivity. The moment that becomes apparent, the exec layer would cut the workforce so that fewer people produce the needed output for 40+ hours a week.
Its surpriaing to you that a talented person is more productive than a drone, regardless of whether ai is used or not? Which plane of existence do you live on?
I know people who code dedicated CAD systems from scratch without ai, and people who struggle to code password hash verifiers with chatGPT on the desktop. The former did it in a month, while the latter was at it for a week, refusing help the whole time.