>programmers and IT were severely overhired during the pandemic

1) I hesitate to believe that losses were disproportionately technical roles as opposed to administrative.

2) Over-hired by what metric? It's well known that hiring never fully recovered after the GFC; was the recruitment post-pandemic just bringing us to parity with where we had been 20 years earlier?

Not to say that I disagree with your following point. The AI overspending and the layoff cost-cutting are not in a direct causal relationship; both are rather symptoms of a common corporate pathology.