Tech Giants Indeed and Glassdoor Announce Layoffs of 1,300 Employees, Attributing Changes to AI Integration

In the face of widespread apprehension among Americans regarding the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on employment, Recruit Holdings Company, the parent organization of jobsite Indeed and employer review platform Glassdoor, has announced a significant workforce reduction of approximately 1,300 employees. The company attributes this decision to the transformative influence of AI on its operations.

In an email communicated to employees earlier this week, Indeed and Recruit Holdings CEO Hisayuki Idekoba acknowledged the profound changes AI is bringing to the world and emphasized the need for his organization to adapt accordingly. This layoff represents approximately 6% of Recruit Holdings’ HR Technology segment workforce.

The impending shift towards increased AI integration within the company was perhaps foreshadowed when Idekoba spoke at a conference hosted by JPMorgan earlier this year. During his presentation, he discussed how AI would significantly reshape his company in the coming years, with one-third of new code soon to be generated by AI, a proportion he predicted would increase to 50% in the near future. These predictions, while potentially daunting for HR professionals globally, underscore the potential of AI to automate a significant portion of manual labor.

This development coincides with similar ambitions from tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, who are also aiming to have the majority of their code produced by AI in the near future. According to its latest internal data, 50% of all code at Google is now generated by AI, while former CEO Eric Schmidt encourages employees to work 50-hour weeks to further advance the company’s AI aspirations. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s internal statistics suggest that 30% of its code is currently being written by AI tools, with plans to increase this figure to 60% in the near future.

Notable figures such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates have suggested that humans may eventually be rendered unnecessary for most tasks, with only niche professions like professional baseball potentially remaining safe. However, traditional careers such as medicine and teaching could be at risk.