Recent job cuts at major companies like Amazon have sparked debate over whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the primary cause, or if broader economic factors and typical hiring cycles are more influential. While some executives cite AI as a reason for layoffs, experts caution against overreacting to individual company announcements.

• Amazon announced plans to cut roughly 14,000 corporate roles, stating a need to be “organised more leanly” to seize AI opportunities.
• Chegg, an online education firm, cited “new realities” of AI for a 45% workforce reduction, while Salesforce cut 4,000 customer service roles, with its CEO attributing it to AI agents.
• UPS has cut 48,000 jobs since last year, with its chief executive previously linking some redundancies to machine learning.
• A study from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis found a correlation between occupations with higher AI prevalence and increased unemployment since 2022.
• Morgan Frank, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, noted that only workers in the office and administrative support sector saw a jump in unemployment claims following ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022.