2022 layoffs: first wave of mass cuts and budget optimization after investors revolted against mass pay and bloated orgs.
2023 layoffs: global pressure and permission for organizations to perform blanket cuts across the board, several times in a row. Hiring freezes gave competitive advantage against good talent leaving (top 5% can always find jobs, but 10 – 30 percentile couldn’t).
2024 layoffs: additional squeeze + AI augmentation, and trimming layers that haven’t been working well by optimizing for individual competitor performance.
We already reached the bottom in B2B cuts and budget slowdown, but companies are making the final changes in headcount to instill the new culture of “performance really matters” and “we can do without 8 people doing the job of a single person”.
In reality, AI won’t solve all problems. It hallucinates a lot and requires a good amount of back and forth. However, experts can oversee and manage that, and individual contributors don’t need 4 management layers on top just to forward emails left and right and set calls up for the sake of it.
