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Agreed. Not just tarriffs, but all of the government layoffs and funding cuts as well. I know a lot of people who have either been laid off, or their coworkers have been laid off, or they've had their funding cut and projects terminated in the last 5 months. It's scary out there, hiring freezes across the board and layoffs every few months as companies are just riding on their capital while waiting for funding to resume, but there's no sign of it happening any time soon, if ever.
My company does mostly government contracting, we haven't won a single contract in the last 8 months and supposedly we only have a few months of runway left before the big layoffs start. It's not because contracts are being awarded and we're just not getting them, it's because all government spending has been shut off, which has trickle-down effects on thousands of companies across the country. My wife is in a completely different industry but is facing the exact same problems there as well. And none of it has anything to do with AI.
Your sample size of 2 is interesting but doesn't mean much. I'm definitely open to alternative explanations, but I'd like to hear why you don't find it credible that people report AI being associated with job cuts. I know lots of people on Lemmy have a hard-on for dissing AI, but AI doesn't even need to be functional for it to be associated with job cuts. In fact, shitty executive decisions would directly explain AI being associated with lots of job cuts.
I don't think it can't be AI, I just don't believe it at this level. I don't know anybody, not a single person whose job even could be replaced by AI, much less has been. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, there are companies that are trying to actually replace their workers with AI, but they're few and far between and make a lot of headlines when they do it.
I think the more likely explanation is that spending freezes across the board (due to tarriffs and government cutbacks) have put a lot of companies in serious financial stress, and they're claiming the resulting layoffs are because of AI optimization because the reality of the situation would send their stock price plummeting.
Or maybe it's both. Company is in dire financial straights, execs pressure middle management to reduce costs any way they can, they yell "AI!" and fire half the staff. Technically they can say they downsized due to AI, when the reality is that they were going to have to fire a bunch of people anyway.
When the midterm elections come, Republicans will want to reverse it, but it will be too late and the Democrats will have Congress for a long time.
republicans wont reverse anything, they already set a series of timebombs in the BBB, to make sure the cuts are blamed on DEMs. i think it would be prudent if republicans take the blame instead , would rather them still remain in power to take the blame, hence that would make them less tangible for re-election.