Workers Are Using AI to Absorb Their Coworkers’ Jobs & Most Aren’t Telling Anyone
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With that in mind, the numbers are striking. At companies that have already conducted layoffs in the past 12 months, the rate climbs to 74.3%. At companies where layoffs don’t seem likely, it drops to 35.2%. Fear is driving the behavior, not just opportunity. And most of it is hidden; 62.8% of workers who absorbed a coworker’s tasks didn’t tell their manager how much AI was doing. Half framed it to leadership as “taking initiative to grow into the role.” Another 28.2% said they were simply “working harder.” 61% say they’d be concerned about their own job security if their manager fully understood how much AI was involved.
The most uncomfortable part of the data is the human element. 71% say the coworker whose tasks they absorbed was a workplace friend. 57% say that coworker was later laid off. The career math, at least in the short term, worked: 79.6% of workers who absorbed a coworker’s tasks received some form of reward: a positive performance review, more responsibility, in some cases a promotion or raise.
As ResumeBuilder’s Chief Career Advisor Stacie Haller put it: “Instead of sharing knowledge and building new skills together, some employees are shifting into self-preservation mode, guarding information, avoiding risk, and at times undermining colleagues to stay off the layoff list.” For employers and HR teams, the actionable read is uncomfortable but clear. When companies don’t define what responsible AI use looks like, employees define it for themselves, quietly, against each other. So build the policy, train people on it, and reward visibility. The workers are already there; leadership just hasn’t caught up.
Estée Lauder Is Cutting 10,000 Jobs & Most Are Coming From One Place
Estée Lauder announced this morning it will cut up to 3,000 more jobs globally, pushing the total restructuring to between 9,000 and 10,000 positions, up from a prior cap of 7,000 and representing roughly 17.5% of the company’s 57,000-person global workforce. Shares rose about 11% in premarket trading after the company also beat Q1 estimates with $3.71 billion in sales and reported adjusted EPS of 88 cents against expectations of 65 cents.
The stock pop can distract from what’s actually happening here. More than 70% of the additional cuts are coming from one place: department store staff roles. These are the beauty counter associates, the Clinique and MAC specialists who built careers and customer relationships in department stores across the country. The economics no longer support that model at the scale Estée operates. The company is redirecting those resources to Ulta, Sephora, Amazon, and TikTok Shop, where discovery and purchasing happen now. This isn’t restructuring in the traditional sense, but rather the structural retirement of a specific kind of job.
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Your Raise Is Real, But It’s Barely Keeping Pace
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Q1 2026 Employment Cost Index this morning, and it confirms the compensation picture most workers and employers are already operating inside. Total compensation for civilian workers rose 0.9% in the first quarter, and 3.4% over the past 12 months ending in March 2026. Wages and salaries grew 0.8% in Q1 and 3.4% over the year. Benefit costs rose 1.2% in Q1 and 3.6% over the year.
After inflation, workers gained just 0.1% in real purchasing power over the past 12 months. Raises are happening, they’re just not buying much extra ground. That’s the honest compensation baseline for 2026; enough to stay even, not enough to get ahead. For job seekers considering a move, the right role at the right moment matters more in this environment than it did when wages were growing at 5% or 6%.
Two trends worth flagging for employers managing comp strategy. First, the government sector convergence is over. State and local government compensation had been running hot as municipalities tried to catch up to private market salaries, the 12-month rate for state and local comp just dropped from 4.3% to 3.5%, and government wage growth fell from 4.1% to 3.4%. When government comp cools, private employers face less pressure on that side of the talent competition. Second, private sector health benefits are up 5.7% year-over-year, well ahead of overall compensation growth and accelerating. The nominal payroll line is growing at 3.4%. The benefits line is growing nearly twice that fast. That gap is real money, and it’s the reason comp conversations in the next 90 days will increasingly circle back to plan design and contribution structures.
Workers Are Searching for AI Jobs at 11x the Rate They Were Three Years Ago & Employers Are Posting Them Even Faster
Indeed Hiring Lab’s Cory Stahle published new data showing job seeker searches for AI-related roles on Indeed have grown 11-fold since ChatGPT launched in November 2022. For context: overall job search activity on Indeed is sitting roughly flat with late 2022. AI searches are growing dramatically faster than the broader market.
The growth didn’t happen in a straight line. It came in waves: a tripling after ChatGPT, a long plateau through 2023 and early 2024, a second surge in mid-2024 alongside Claude 3, Llama 3, and GPT-4o, and then sharp reacceleration in early 2025 with Gemini 2.0 Flash and DeepSeek R1. By early 2026, searches had hit new highs.
But the more important gap is between candidates and employers. AI role searches still represent less than 1% of all searches on Indeed in early 2026. Meanwhile, the Indeed AI Tracker shows that nearly 5% of all job postings mentioned AI or an adjacent skill as of late February 2026, and that’s using identical keyword sets. Employers are advertising for AI skills faster than candidates are even looking for them. As Stahle put it, AI is moving “past the era of viral curiosity and into something much more durable.”
For job seekers, that gap is an opportunity. In a market where almost nothing else is tilted in candidates’ favor right now, AI-tagged roles represent a narrower competitive pool than the broader job market. If you have any credible AI fluency, you’re competing in a smaller pond than the numbers suggest. For employers posting AI roles, the talent supply is thinner than your job description likely assumes. The hiring teams winning right now are treating AI capability as a continuum, not a credential.
Frequently Asked Questions
The term coined by ResumeBuilder describes workers using AI to take on tasks previously done by a coworker, often without disclosing AI’s role to management. In a ResumeBuilder survey of layoff-anxious workers, 60.7% reported doing this. The behavior is most common at companies that have already conducted layoffs, where the rate jumps to 74.3%.
Estée Lauder is shifting from department store channels toward digital and specialty retail: Ulta, Sephora, Amazon, and TikTok Shop. More than 70% of the new cuts are department store staff roles, reflecting a structural change in where beauty product discovery and purchasing now happens. The company is also in merger talks with Puig, which may be accelerating the size of the cuts.
Total civilian compensation grew 0.9% in Q1 and 3.4% over the past 12 months, per the BLS Employment Cost Index. After adjusting for inflation, real purchasing power grew just 0.1% over the year, meaning workers received raises, but they’re barely outpacing prices.
Yes, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. AI role searches grew 11-fold since ChatGPT launched, but still represent less than 1% of all searches on Indeed. Meanwhile, nearly 5% of job postings now mention AI-related skills, meaning employer demand is significantly outpacing candidate supply in this niche.
