“#Amazon has outlined plans to cut a further 16,000 #jobs across its corporate workforce, as the #tech group steps up efforts to reduce costs amid increased spending on #AI.

In a message to staff on Wednesday, senior executive #BethGaletti said the company was making “organisation changes”, including “#reducing layers . . . and #removing bureaucracy”.

The changes will affect about 16,000 jobs, and “most” #US based #employees would be given 90 days to look for a new role internally or offered severance pay, she added.”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork <https://archive.md/XO9Qo> / <https://www.ft.com/content/c6055c9d-5229-4cfc-9f75-c7d96e021929> (paywall)

“#AI is cleverer than digital technologies of old. But the same logic of technological change seems likely to apply. For one thing, today’s artificially intelligent #systems have what ai scholars call “jagged intelligence”, displaying uneven and inconsistent performance. Being good at 95% of a task is not enough when the remaining 5% involves #EdgeCases and discretion. Evidence from #Anthropic, drawing on millions of anonymised interactions with its models, bears this out.

Only around 4% of #occupations use ai across three-quarters or more of their tasks; hardly any can be #automated in full. As with the #computer, ai is reducing the #cost of specific cognitive activities—drafting #text, writing #code, gathering #information or running standard analyses—rather than replacing whole #roles.”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork < https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/01/26/why-ai-wont-wipe-out-white-collar-jobs> (paywall) / < https://archive.md/8o49V>

“#Vimeo is laying off employees around the globe just months after the Italian #software company #BendingSpoons acquired the platform for $1.38 billion, as reported earlier by Business Insider. Even though it’s not clear how many people were laid off, #DaveBrown, Vimeo’s former #BrandVP, says in a post on #LinkedIn that “a large portion of the company” was impacted.

Other former #employees echo this statement in posts online, with one video #engineer saying “almost everyone” at the company was laid off, “including the entire video team.” Another #SoftwareEngineer says he was laid off along with “a gigantic amount of the company.””

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork <https://www.theverge.com/news/866238/vimeo-layoffs-bending-spoons-acquisition> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/VeJjp>

“Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the #labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.

Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for #skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.

“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by #AI, either #enhanced or #eliminated or #transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.””

#ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar <https://theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/23/ai-tsunami-labour-market-youth-employment-says-head-of-imf-davos>

“Nasdaq-listed Atlassian’s shares have tumbled 16 per cent since #OpenAI rival #Anthropic launched Cowork on January 12.

Its potential to disrupt traditional #software makers has unnerved investors in companies including #Salesforce, #ServiceNow, #SAP and #Adobe, while #Atlassian is facing questions about how Cowork could change the jobs of the software #developers who use its core products like #Jira and #Confluence.”

SAP being replaced by AI shows the journalist doesn’t know anything about the conservative nature big business take when it comes to core #data.

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork / #AI <https://www.afr.com/technology/atlassian-and-software-giants-face-down-new-ai-threat-20260122-p5nw4i> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/7kttu>

“These are tough times for #tech workers. Half-a-million tech #workers lost their jobs in 2025 as their companies continued to #invest, insatiably, in #AI and deploy #products that have caused psychosis in their own #investors, seamlessly produced and proliferated child sex abuse material, and encouraged teenagers to kill themselves.

So-called “#HardTech” is in: Jobs in #defense and #surveillance are the hottest roles on the market. Working 9-9-6 (that’s 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week) is the new answer to work-life balance. And for anyone still holding onto the progressive, pro-immigrant, “democratizing” dreams of the tech industry of the 2010s, #BigTech #leaders (and some of their partners, including a distracting Lauren Sánchez) made their new political alignment clear as day just under a year ago, when they joined Donald Trump at his second inauguration.”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork <https://sf.gazetteer.co/theyve-pickled-each-others-brains>

“There is a real phenomenon of a frozen #WhiteCollar job market in which #corporations are not hiring for open roles as a #hedge to see if #jobs can be duplicated with #AI”

#ZeroHourWork / #computing <https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/15/forrester_ai_jobs_impact/>

Happy new year.

It’s 2026 and this is what #ZeroHourWork looks like when #AI and #Robots are integrated. It’s all about the the #economics.

“All the Pro-robot #people here are clueless. The #maintenance will be under contract with most assemblies sent in from China. I know more about this because I interviewed at the plant a few years ago for #Automation and #electrical service #tech. Five candidates started in the morning. For three layers of testing. I was the last service tech standing for the end of the day sit down with the maintenance leads. The next day the HR 'contractor' called to tell me how impressed the team was with my demonstrated skills. But they would not be making an offer because because "I was overqualified and would get bored" The pay would have been about 80K. Less than my previous job.” — #mikerockwell5242 youtube comment

#BMW / #Figure / #FigureAI <https://youtube.com/watch?v=bCkl9hIEb6k>

@crowgirl I’ve been tracking #WhiteCollar #ZeroHourWork since 2022 when he came to the conclusion Alphabet payed its SE/SRE too much.

A 2023 post for example: <https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/billionaire-hohn-more-google-layoffs-17736530.php>

“Online retail giant #Amazon – said to be America’s second-largest employer – is reportedly planning a major expansion of its #warehouse #automation that could reduce the number of #USA #hires by more than 600,000 over the next eight years.

According to internal documents obtained by The #NewYorkTimes, the company’s robotics division aims to automate roughly 75 percent of operations by around 2033, and expects to avoid about 160,000 new roles by 2027.

The #leaked materials also highlight #CostSavings of around $12.6 billion from 2025-2027, or about 30 cents saved per item shipped.”

🤖 #robotics / 🦾 #ZeroHourWork 🦿<https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2025/10/21/amazon-reportedly-about-to-replace-half-a-million-human-workers-with-robots/95713/>

“The #UK #tech sector is cutting #graduate #jobs dramatically – down 46 percent in the past year, with another 53 percent drop projected, according to figures from the Institute of Student Employers (#ISE).

The culprit? #AI is already doing the entry-level work graduates used to perform like routine #coding, #DataAnalysis, and basic #digital tasks. #Companies still need tech #talent, but they're hiring experienced #workers instead of #training newcomers.”

#ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar <https://theregister.com/2025/10/16/uk_tech_grad_jobs/>

“In August Google said it had cut 35% of its managers overseeing teams of fewer than three. In September Fiverr, a freelancing marketplace, said it would shed #managers to focus more on artificial intelligence (#ai). Amazon has been trimming all year in its effort to improve efficiency—most recently in July, at its cloud-computing arm. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has been complaining about “managers managing managers” since 2023.

And that’s just in #tech. So far this year phrases relating to “reducing #management layers” have been mentioned 98 times on the earning calls of companies in s&p’s global stockmarket index, twice as often as in the whole of 2022.”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork <https://archive.md/VfX7I> / <https://www.economist.com/business/2025/10/05/bonfire-of-the-middle-managers> (paywall)

“Without a human in the loop.

These #agents are remarkable at what they’re doing, and you can take action with an #agent built on the #Sierra platform — 100 percent of our customers are doing it. To some degree, there’s this technique in #AI called retrieval augmented generation, which is a fancy way of saying it’s answering questions. It turns out that that’s kind of a #commodity at this point.

Slapping #ChatGPT together with a #KnowledgeBase is not that hard. Most #engineers nowadays could do that in a weekend, which by the way is mind-blowing. It was science fiction three years ago; now it’s a weekend project. Welcome to #technology. It’s mind-blowing.” — Bret Taylor

#RAG / #ZeroHourWork / #MIT / #AIBubble / #OpenAi / #Meta / #discussion <https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/773904/sierra-ceo-bret-taylor-ai-agents-openai-bubble-interview>

“Fiverr has told around 250 #staffers that they are back on the market as it pivots to having "a modern, clean, #AI-focused #infrastructure from the ground up."

The company confirmed on Tuesday to #TheRegister that it would #LayOff around 30 percent of its #workforce. In an extended essay on X, #founder and #CEO #MichaKaufman said that AI was going to mean a fundamental #rethink and that the 15-year-old freelance services bazaar is "going back to #startup mode."”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork / #sackings / #restructuring <https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/16/fiverr_ai_layoff/>

“More than half of #tech companies are considering a complete restructure or changing their operating model in response to #AI, according to research from the consulting sector.

Looking at responses from consulting clients, research firm Source said that it found the changes had become a priority among the #technology, #media, and #telecoms sector (#TMT).

Using the research firm's database and interviews with 150 clients, Source found that 60 percent of those in the tech sector expect to invest in organizational restructuring in the next 18 months.

"TMT clients remain unconfident, but advances in AI and new technologies are triggering urgent discussions about business restructuring,"”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork / #layoff / #sacking / #restructure <https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/15/tech_restructures_ai/> / REPORT <https://www.sourceglobalresearch.com/reports/9586-the-technology-media-and-telecoms-consulting-market-in-2025>

“"After a thorough review of our #Human Data efforts, we've decided to accelerate the expansion and prioritization of our specialist #AITutors, while scaling back our focus on general AI tutor roles. This #StrategicPivot will take effect immediately," the email read. "As part of this shift in focus, we no longer need most generalist AI tutor positions and your #employment with xAI will conclude."

#Workers were told that they would be #paid through either the end of their #contract or November 30, but their access to company systems would be terminated the day of the layoff notice.

The #DataAnnotation team is #xAI's largest team. The workers play a key role in developing #Grok by teaching the #chatbot how to #understand the world by #contextualizing and #categorizing raw #data.”

LLMs and chatbot products are a pipeline of human and machine processes. Data annotators put the human into AI products.

#AI / #DataAnnotators / #ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar <https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-xai-layoffs-data-annotators-2025-9> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/q56om>

“It was a job Tekkılıç had fallen into and come to love. Late last year, when depression and insomnia had stalled his art career, his older sister sent him a job posting she thought would be a perfect fit for the #tech enthusiast and would help him pay for his rent and iced Americano obsession. On his best weeks, he earned about $1,500, which went a long way in Turkey. The remote work was flexible. And it let him play a small but vital role in the burgeoning world of generative AI.

Hundreds of millions of humans now use #GenerativeAI on a daily basis. Some are treating the bots they commune with as coworkers, therapists, friends, and even lovers. In large part, that's because behind every shiny new #AIModel is an army of humans like Tekkılıç who are paid to train it to sound more human-like. #DataLabelers, as they're known, spend hours reading a #chatbots answers to test #prompts and flag which ones are helpful, accurate, concise, and natural-sounding and which are wrong, rambling, robotic, or offensive”

Humans who filter, AI question/response data. Think about that if you hear marketing about the sophistication of chatbots, AI models and intelligence.

#ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar <https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-training-jobs-data-annotators-labelers-outlier-scale-meta-xai-2025-9> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/ejcbc>

“While ANZ has begun sweeping #restructures and started #culling 3500 jobs, some ANZ staffers have taken to online platform Reddit to vent and #gossip. It is an online phenomenon that has given the media – and the wider public – new insights into how Matos’ agenda is being received in parts of ANZ’s workforce.

Some #ANZStaff have taken to #Reddit in response to changes from new chief executive #NunoMatos.

The #SocialMedia platform has meant disgruntled #workers can #anonymously rail against their bosses, crack jokes, share gossip about what’s happening in their section of the bank, and support each other through a time of high anxiety.”

In #Tech, before social media and Reddit, there was FC!

#ElNuno / #Finance / #ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar <https://www.theage.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/inside-the-reddit-thread-where-disgruntled-anz-staffers-are-railing-against-the-boss-20250910-p5mtuw.html> / <https://archive.md/wL6GO> / <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company> #DotComDeadPool / #FC <https://archive.md/wTkQw>

“Two months ago, the #CommonwealthBank announced plans to replace 45 #CustomerService workers with an #ArtificialIntelligence #chatbot before later backtracking and reversing the decision.

But across the #FinancialServices and #Banking sector, the use of #AI is soaring and thousands of #jobs have been cut – though the connection is rarely officially made.”

#WhiteCollar / #ZeroHourWork / #CBA / #Australia <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/sep/09/dhanushi-lost-her-job-the-same-day-cba-rolled-out-an-ai-chatbot-it-may-just-be-the-beginning>

“What’s actually going to happen is #RichPeople are going to use AI to replace #workers,” he says. “It’s going to create massive #unemployment and a huge rise in #profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the #CapitalistSystem.”

#AI / #ZeroHourWork / #WhiteCollar / #capitalism / #GeoffreyHinton <https://www.ft.com/content/31feb335-4945-475e-baaa-3b880d9cf8ce> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/Ua8gt>