AI layoffs surge, but human touch still drives future jobs

The news of Amazon laying off around 14,000 staffers has sent shockwaves in the technology industry. In this latest layoff round, around four per cent of Amazon’s global employee base will be reduced. The reason given behind such massive firing is the AI-led automation. Amazon is not alone.

Reportedly around 80,000 staffers have lost their jobs to AI-led productivity improvement. Companies like Meta, Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, and many more had resorted to optimising workforce as AI-powered solutions enable several processes to get automated. As the AI solutions get more powerful over the years, this process is going to accelerate.

Does it mean millions of jobs will get wiped out from the market? Will it create large scale unemployment? These are fundamental fears arising from the ever-rising AI wave. And there are many schools of thoughts in this regard. There are doomsayers, who advocate that AI is going spell real trouble for white-collar jobs.

Like industrial revolution, which led to massive job losses for blue collar workers; AI wave will bring in sweeping changes in the professional fields like technology, retail, manufacturing, financial services and other sectors.

Similarly, optimists are of the opinion that though job losses are the immediate outcome of the AI wave, it will eventually end of creating more jobs over the years than the losses. Now, the reality may be somewhere in between.

Let’s understand some of the recent trends to evaluate its better. Reportedly, the share of Google in overall search fell below 90 per cent in July 2025. This fall was attributed to generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and others.

Similarly, a recent report said that the search share of ChatGPT has fallen as competition within GenAI tools increase. These two data points indicate that while emergence of AI is breaking the dominance of established players, the AI ecosystem will also face fierce competition in the coming years.

So, while job losses will happen in established companies, new jobs will get created by the new AI entrepreneurs. In another instance, Salesforce laid off around 4,000 customer support positions in recent months.

However, its CEO, Marc Benioff said last week that the company would bring in 3,000-5,000 sales people into the company as AI is lacking the human connect for closing a sales deal.

This shows that while one type of jobs is getting eliminated, jobs are getting created in some other fields. So, the prediction of apocalypse is a far cry. At the end of the day, human connect will always be valued and cherished.

Without that touch, processes can be automated but whether that process automation yields desired results or now can’t be evaluated. Moreover, AI adoption among enterprises has been slow.

Most of the layoffs are limited to top-tier technology companies. Companies operating in the broader economy are adopting it slowly as seen in other technologies.

So, headlines can be scary in terms of job losses but situation is not that bad as projected by the ecosystem. Rather, AI should be seen as another avenue of job creation.