AI Layoffs Loom as Workers Cling to Stability

Additional Resources

• AlixPartners Disruption Index 2026
• ZipRecruiter Survey of New Hires
• Express Employment Professionals/Harris Poll

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Welcome to Cornering the Job Market for Wednesday, January 14th. In today’s headlines, we have the results from two major quarterly employee surveys. But first, CEOs are optimistic about AI, but maybe they shouldn’t be. Alex Partners just published their seventh annual disruption index. It’s a global survey of 3,200 senior executives throughout 11 countries. And this year, the U.S. stands out for one reason. We’re the only country where disruption actually increased in 2026. What exactly is disruption, you ask? Here’s how they define it. The displacement of businesses, markets, and value networks as a result of economic, societal, environmental, political, regulatory, or technological changes. Technological innovation and adoption, in particular, act as catalysts to accelerate other disruptive forces.

0:50

And what exactly does that mean, you still ask? It means businesses and market conditions are changing, and technology is causing those changes to happen at a faster pace. And as a result, executives, specifically in the US, for this survey are having to work harder to keep up. But here are some of the numbers from the survey that are much more interesting than all that. 80% of CEOs are optimistic about AI’s impact on their business. Pretty telling and very clear. 65% are primarily using it to drive revenue growth, while 35% are focused on cost reduction. Where’s that cost reduction going to come from? Well, I think we can logically conclude that that means staff reductions in many cases. So heads up there for everyone. But most telling from this was a whopping 95% expect AI-driven layoffs by 2030.

1:44

So the administration here in the US or federal government is telling us don’t worry about it, nothing happening. But again, the people who are managing large teams, large organizations, they’re increasingly saying that it absolutely is going to happen. They intend for it to happen. Now, the number one workforce issue listed is productivity. And I can’t help but think this is all tied together, right? They’re saying productivity is their biggest focus. What’s going to solve productivity? Well, AI and automation, the top areas that they’re investing in. So all of this is tied together. Now, I do give the CEOs who took this survey credit for being self-aware, at least to some degree. The respondents expect 55% of their job functions will soon be fully integrated with AI. So the logical question seeing that is are they also willing to take 45% less pay? Something tells me no, but they may not have a choice either. We’ll see how that plays out.

2:43

In the next headline, ZipRecruiter just published their latest new hire survey. They sum up the results by saying job seekers are accepting a new job faster, even when it isn’t their dream job. And in this slow hire environment, they aren’t regretting their speedy decision after the fact. Fair enough. We know there’s not a lot of churn right now. We’re not seeing significant job openings, things have been pretty slow. So all of that makes sense. But despite the settling, 92% of new hires say they’re glad they took their current role. And the search didn’t take too long either. 53% found their new job within a month. That’s up from 47% in the previous quarter. So that’s great to see in a time where we know there just aren’t an abundance of new openings. So I like to see that positivity. There are some other trends that jumped out at me. 57% reported receiving a response within three days, which is up from 51%.

3:38

I’d like to think that’s mainly driven by AI, where companies are finally using technology to improve the job search process instead of hindering it. And yes, I’m of course referring to the one-click apply that has plagued all of us in the market for way too long now. I hope that to some degree AI is what’s solving that, allowing companies to respond to candidates faster, just making all of it move so much more efficiently. That’s a trend that I absolutely love seeing. Also, the median number of applications submitted to a job went down from 24 to 19. Great trend there, too. One more interesting data point, which I also found surprising since it contradicts the results from my company’s AI survey that just has run over the past few days. There was a decline in AI use reported for new hires. I’m really not sure at all why this survey is showing that that is on the decline. It’s just contradictory to everything else that I see out there. It shows that three out of four new hires are rarely using AI or not at all.

4:44

What’s going on there? Maybe it’s a misprint, I don’t know, but definitely not what I would have expected in any way. So those are the highlights, at least what I thought were the highlights. You can check out the full results at ziprecruiter-research.org. And finally for today, a new survey shows 58% of U.S. job seekers say finding work will be harder in 2026. This is from an Express Employment Harris poll. The sentiment overall was neutral. There were some good, some bad. Some of it left me scratch my head. Honestly, sometimes these surveys just spin the results to make it sound more dramatic than it really is. For example, and this is a direct quote from the survey for those already employed, the grind is real. 47% report working longer hours or more shifts than usual in the past year, and 37% have logged more overtime. That sounds bad, right? Awful. So negative. But if you flip it, you could say 53% didn’t report working longer hours or more shifts, and 63% didn’t work more overtime. So look, I’m just amusing myself here. Um the bottom line is read it, read the survey for yourself. I’ll I’ll link it. Actually, I’ll look at the link. It’s expresspros.com. Not to give them a hard time, but when you put a spin on it, it’s hard to know what’s really going on. So as you read through this report, if you want to go check it out, I’m not sure you’ll know what to think of the job market.

6:10

But here’s my take. The market’s not great, it’s not awful, but we are seeing some signs of things trending in the right direction. So that is what I’m going with for now. But I’ll keep reporting the headlines every day as soon as they come out. That is it for today. Thank you for listening. But before we go, here’s your fun fact. As always, the Xerox 914, it was the first plain paper copier. It was so prone to fire that it came with a free fire extinguisher. I almost don’t believe that. But that’s the fact. That’s what’s gone down in history for the Xerox, the poor Xerox 914, and anyone who bought it. It was so likely to catch fire, they’d give you a free fire extinguisher. Not the best marketing pitch, but there we go. Thank you for listening today. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone you think might be interested, even in that last fun fact. And um, thanks for listening again. Uh uh look forward to talking to you tomorrow.