The alarm clock arrived inautumn of 2022. Before ChatGPT showed up on the market, artificial intelligence was still something for workers. There were certainly the first applications. Huawei had already launched its own in 2018 Mate 20 Proa smartphone that used AI to recognize subjects in images. There was also a function to identify the calories of foods. Almost nothing compared to what we are seeing now.
It has become one of the most recurring formats in newspapers dealing with technology “The X jobs that will be replaced by AI”. The X does not only indicate a generic number but also the fact that that list is constantly updated. It’s always there in every new report some work that adds up. The tenses are always in the future. Often the same reports that contain the list of lost jobs also talk about strategies to relocate that pass through us. Yet looking at the data of the last few months, the use of that future seems too conservative. Artificial intelligence has already changed the job market.
Data on layoffs in 2025: the problem of jobs never created
According to an estimate reported by the Challenger company, Gray & Christmas only in the United States in 2025 there were 48,414 ads of layoffs where artificial intelligence was mentioned. Of these further 30,000 in the last year alone. Enough to clarify that the problem is not tied to exactly one near future. And where layoffs do not arrive, we can also start counting the jobs that simply they will no longer be created. On October 21, the New York Times published an analysis of Amazon’s future. The company’s growth strategy is explained here: focusing on automation for increase sales volume without hiring new staff.
Adam commits suicide at 16, ChatGPT’s version: “He used the chat in the wrong way”
Result? Amazon aims to double the volume of products sold by 2033. With this strategy you would save 600,000 jobs. The impact, in the long term, is not low. Amazon is the second largest company in the United States by number of employees. At the moment he has about 1.56 million. In first place is Walmart with 2.1 million.
The artificial intelligence excuse
There is a story in all this, linked precisely to layoffs and innovation. Elon Musk also remembered her in ainterview by Joe Rogan published on October 31st. It’s an anecdote attributed to Milton FriedmanNobel Prize winner for economics 1976. Passing by a construction site, Friedman notices that no one is using bulldozers. Everyone has a shovel in their hand. He asks the foreman why. He replies: “So we can give more work to the community.” Friedman: “Then instead of shovels, use spoons!”.
The answer to all the jobs being cut with AI, however, may be more complex than this. It’s a topic that Bloomberg raised in an article published on November 19 and signed by Agnee Ghosh. Here it is pointed out that in many cuts we actually talk about artificial intelligence but the cause is not well understood.
Tariffs, inflation, trade wars and wars on the ground are reshaping the world we know. Not only that. Many of these cuts concern tech companies that in pandemic boom they thought they had entered a new era in which we would spend our lives in quarantine in front of a PC. Or at least we would have done it much longer than now. Explains George Denlingerpresident of the employment agency Robert Half: “Companies say they will use artificial intelligence to replace the jobs they are cutting. We can call it AI Washing. They blame AI even though it is not the only reason they are cutting jobs.”
