Amazon’s 14K Layoffs, ADP’s New Jobs Tracker, & the Rise of AI in Job Posts

Additional Resources

• Amazon to Cut About 14,000 Corporate Jobs in AI Push
• ADP Announces National Employment Report
• Gartner Says CHROs Must Become an Enterprise Leader of How Work Should Change in the AI Era
• How Employers Are Talking About AI in Job Postings

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Today’s job market headlines include ADP’s new weekly payroll data, three ways companies are reinventing work, and how AI is showing up in job postings. But first, Amazon just announced another 14,000 corporate job cuts, calling it part of a broader restructuring to reduce bureaucracy and shift resources toward its biggest bets, artificial intelligence and automation. Amazon expects to spend about $118 billion this year on capital investments, much of it tied to those technologies.

0:29

It’s an announcement that’s catching a lot of attention. Senator Bernie Sanders has already sent a letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, writing that the company’s massive automation plan could cost hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs. Sanders asked Bezos whether Amazon plans to provide laid-off workers with fair severance and continued healthcare coverage, noting that many of the company’s workers already rely on federal assistance programs. He wrote, What are Amazon’s plans to provide help and support for the many hundreds of thousands of workers you’ll be replacing with robots and AI? Now, just last week, Sanders asked a similar question in response to an ex post from Elon Musk where Elon stated, robots will replace all jobs. No one is.

1:27

No one knows the answer to what’s going to be on the other side of this, but make no mistake, companies are moving forward with implementing AI. And for anyone who believes AI isn’t going to take jobs, you’re just fooling yourself on this at this point. It’s happening right now. Amazon’s decision is a clear signal that automation and AI have gone from theoretical to operational. And this should just be a wake-up call for anyone who’s still on the sidelines here because we see stories of this nature almost every day lately. So we’ll continue to monitor these. I’ll continue to report on it, but it is happening as we speak. In the next headline, ADP Research just launched a weekly version of its national employment report.

2:10

It’s intended to give employers and analysts near real-time insights into private sector job growth. Today’s preliminary release showed an increase of 14,250 jobs in the four weeks ending October 11th. That’s good news, but ADP has to show that this data is reliable and can be consistent. They just did their best Bureau of Labor Statistics impression on the last monthly employment report where they revised numbers from the month prior.

2:52

I’ll call it a glitch. They just called it a revision. So they didn’t clarify why exactly that happened. And it is coming at a good time since we aren’t seeing any numbers from the Department of Labor or BLS right now during the shutdown. So we’re kind of operating in the dark as far as tracking what’s happening in the job market. And I do like this private payroll data above anything that the government reports. So look, this is a small step in the right direction. We did see uh growth in that four-week period, so we’ll take it as a win, even if it’s a small one. In other news, AI isn’t just changing jobs, it’s changing work itself.

3:28

Yesterday, Gardner said companies that redesign how work gets done, not just deploy AI, are twice as likely to beat revenue goals. They outlined three ways work is evolving: augmenting existing tasks to make them faster and more accurate, re-engineering workflows and functions to drive efficiency, and inventing entirely new AI-based ways of working that improve scale and disrupt markets. Alright, that all makes sense. I mean it’s kind of stating the obvious to a degree, but I have come to realize that implementing AI solutions are much easier said than done. And so the challenge for leaders is to help employees and their organizations as a whole use AI effectively, not just adopt it. And speaking of adoption, Gardner predicts that by 2028, 15% of daily work decisions will be made autonomously by agentic AI. I believe that’s an incredibly low forecast.

4:21

And what’s even more surprising to me is their estimation that less than 1% of US jobs will be lost to AI through 2028. And when I see numbers like that, I think they’re either delusional for reporting that or deliberately misleading us. And coincidentally, next week will mark two years since Chat GPT was first published, was first introduced. That didn’t exist three years ago as of right now. And so it’s impossible for me to fathom the developments that we will see over the next three years. We have all of 26, 27, and all of 28, and we’re only gonna see 1% of U.S. jobs displaced by AI. I’m not buying that at all. That seems, again, almost irresponsible to report. So when you hear statements like that, please don’t take that as gospel and assume that this disruption by AI is not going to be as significant as I believe it is. I say it every time it comes up.

5:25

I hope I’m wrong, but I believe this is going to be the most significant thing to happen in our lifetime. And it’s gonna happen a lot faster than many sources, including Gartner, are reporting. And in the final headline today, everyone is saying AI, but many companies can’t explain what they mean by it. A new hiring lab report from Indeed looked at hundreds of thousands of job postings that referenced AI and found that while mentions are rising fast, one in four postings gives little or no context about how AI will actually be used. I’m not shocked to see that. I mean, since many companies are making up their AI strategies as they go right now, and they’re changing constantly. We know that that’s happening.

6:09

But in AI-related job posts, the most commonly used phrase is no surprise, AI, followed by artificial intelligence, generative AI, gen AI, and deep learning. Now Indeed created five categories to try to apply context to the use of these phrases. And they are core AI development and use, which accounted for 52% of the use of AI in job postings. AI recruiting tools come in second at 13.6%. So it’s very clear that a lot of companies right now are interested in using AI in their recruiting, systems design, AI-powered services and tools, and transportation load matching.

6:51

That was a bit of a surprise to me, seemed like an outlier in this in this group, but it tells me that tells all of us that AI is being used heavily in trucking and logistics. And despite their effort to find logical groupings, indeed discovered that 25% of job descriptions lacked a clear theme and seemed to use AI-related words generically. Doesn’t surprise me at all, right? I mean, that’s kind of what’s happening right now. Everyone wants to be in on the AI party, but not everyone really understands what that means, how to apply it, how to use it effectively, as we talk about all the time. So it’s clear that AI has become the new buzzword in job descriptions and on resumes, but it’s still a lot like the Wild West to me. 

7:37

And as I say often, the train has definitely left the station and it’s going to only pick up speed from here. But I expect it will continue to be messy as we figure out exactly where it’s heading. It’s a fascinating time to say the least. But if you are a job seeker, just know that many companies, most companies even, are looking for AI skills and knowledge. It comes up in so many interviews. So even if you’re applying for a job where you don’t think AI is part of it, go ahead and figure out how to reference that experience on your resume. And when asked in an interview, and you should make sure you’re taking these steps so you can answer it honestly, let your employer know that you are ahead of the AI curve, that you are paying attention, you’re using it in your personal life, even if you haven’t yet had the opportunity to do so in your in your professional life. 

8:26

It will make a difference in terms of how the interviewer will perceive you. So on that note, we will wrap up for the day. But before we do, here’s a fun fact: many companies are now hiring chief happiness officers. Yes, that’s a real title. They’re doing it to improve employee morale, well-being, and engagement. I think that’s a luxury to have, personally. Yes, we know that happy employees stay longer, they perform better, but do we really need a chief happiness officer? Maybe we do. I’m old school.

9:00

So if you want a chief happiness officer, if that makes you happy and you can afford it, by all means have one in place. So thank you for listening today. I appreciate it as always. Please like and subscribe, share with anyone you think might be interested, and I appreciate your feedback. So talk to you tomorrow.