Goldman Sachs has issued a stark warning to workers caught up in the AI-driven layoff wave – finding a new job could take longer, and it may pay less when they do.
The Wall Street giant says tech employees displaced by automation are facing a tougher road back into work than those in more stable industries.
To make matters worse, the very technology replacing them also erodes the value of their skills.
In March alone, US employers announced 60,620 job cuts – a 25 percent increase from the previous month – with AI linked to roughly one in four of them.
With tens of thousands of highly skilled workers now competing for fewer roles, Goldman Sachs strategist Pierfrancesco Mei warned the impact could linger well beyond the initial job loss.
‘They take approximately one month longer to find a new job and suffer real earnings losses of more than 3 percent upon re-employment, compared with negligible losses for workers displaced from more stable occupations,’ Mei wrote.
Much of the damage comes from workers being pushed into lower-level or more routine roles. The same technology that eliminated their positions also reduces the value of their skills, he added.
So far this year, Amazon, Oracle, Meta, Atlassian and Block have laid off tens of thousands as layoffs sweep across the tech industry amid the accelerating AI arms race.
Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, pictured with Challenger’s Oracle Team USA during the 35th America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017. The tech giant is slashing jobs while ramping up AI spending
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block, the parent company of Cash App, Square and Afterpay, would be taking on risk by investing in ‘intelligence tools,’ as the company cut more than 4,000 employees on Thursday
Goldman Sachs strategist Pierfrancesco Mei warned that displaced tech workers could face tougher short-term job transitions
Oracle – the software and cloud giant founded by billionaire Larry Ellison – cut over 30,000 jobs globally, with over 10,000 positions axed in a single morning on March 31.
Amazon has already cut tens of thousands of corporate roles across multiple rounds, even as it doubles down on AI.
Meta has launched another wave of layoffs this year after years of job cuts.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block has axed 40 percent of its workforce, while Atlassian has slashed around 10 percent to refocus on AI.
Gaming giant Epic Games also cut 1,000 jobs last month as it struggles with rising costs and slowing growth.
Although the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total employment rose by 178,000 in March, the unemployment rate remained largely unchanged at 4.3 percent.
Growth was concentrated outside the tech sector, with gains in healthcare, construction, transportation and warehousing.
The report also showed that American employers unexpectedly cut 92,000 jobs in February, signaling that the labor market is still under strain.
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Goldman Sachs gives brutal jobs warning that will make every American desperate to avoid being laid off