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czhu12 • today at 6:27 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Isn't the long term trend just that we don't need as many engineers, not that there will no more software engineers?

Theres another, different loop I keep seeing which is:

  - Company A lays off engineers citing AI efficiencies
  - People say its because of over hiring during 2020
  - Company B lays off engineers citing AI efficiencies
  - People say its because it was never a good business
  - Company C lays off engineers citing AI efficiencies
  - People say its because theres a recession
I guess to cite a counter example, unemployment is still super low, software jobs are still holding up, but the bear case is that eventually 5% of people will be able to do what people do today, and the demand for software won't grow at the same pace.

Replies

Xirdus • today at 7:40 PM

If company A is Amazon, company B is Ubisoft, and company C is Oracle, then I think it's very likely there isn't any pattern or "loop" here and it's legitimately just 3 different companies in 3 different situations doing layoffs for 3 different reasons but all 3 reaching for the same PR playbook. "We're leveraging AI to increase productivity" is the new "we're streamlining our business and focusing on our core products".