Firms are blaming AI for job cuts. Critics say it’s a ‘good excuse’

From technology to airlines, major global companies have been cutting staff numbers as the true impact of artificial intelligence emerges, sparking employee concerns. But critics say AI has become an easy excuse for companies seeking to downsize.

Last month, a technology consulting firm Accenture Announce a Restructuring plan It involves a quick exit of workers who cannot first reskill the AI. Days later, Lufthansa He said he was going to 4,000 jobs eliminated by 2030 Because it relies on artificial intelligence to increase efficiency.

Sales force Also laid off 4000 customer support roles In September, saying that AI could do 50% of the company’s work. Meanwhile, a fintech company Klarna It has decreased employees by 40% Because it strongly embraces artificial intelligence tools.

Language learning platform Duolingo He stated that it would be done gradually Stop relying on contractors And using artificial intelligence to fill the gaps.

The headlines are bleak, but Fabian Stefani, associate professor of artificial intelligence and labor at the Oxford Internet Institute, said there may be more to the job cuts than meets the eye.

Previously, there may have been some stigma associated with the use of AI, but companies are now “scapegoating” the technology to take responsibility for difficult business moves such as layoffs.

“I’m really skeptical about whether the layoffs that we’re currently seeing are really due to real efficiency gains,” Stephanie said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s actually a projection of AI in the sense of, ‘We can use AI to make good excuses.’”

Companies can essentially position themselves on the frontiers of AI technology to appear innovative and competitive, while at the same time hiding the true reasons for layoffs., According to Stephanie.

“There could be many other reasons why companies have to shed part of their workforce…Duolingo or Klarna are really prime candidates for this because there has been an increase in hiring during Corona.” [Covid-19 pandemic] The professor also said.

Some companies that have thrived during the pandemic have “significantly outgrown their headcount,” and the recent layoffs may simply be a “market clearing.”

He added: “It’s to some extent separating people who didn’t have a long-term sustainable perspective, and instead of saying ‘we miscalculated this two or three years ago,’ they can now resort to a scapegoat, meaning this is because of AI.”

The pattern sparked conversation online. One of the founders, Jean-Christophe Pugli, even put it popularly Share LinkedIn AI adoption is “much slower” than claimed, and in large companies “not much is happening” with AI projects being pulled back due to cost or security concerns.

“At the same time, there are announcements of big plans for layoffs ‘due to artificial intelligence.’ “It seems like a great excuse, in a context where the economy is slowing in many countries, despite what the amazing performance of stock exchanges suggests,” said Bogli, who co-founded Authentic.ly.

“We have successfully redeployed hundreds of employees to other areas such as professional services, sales, and customer success,” the Salesforce spokesperson added.

Klarna directed CNBC to its co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski Comments on X He explained that the company reduced its workforce from 5,500 to 3,000 people within two years, but “artificial intelligence is only part of that story.”

Siemiatkowski linked the workforce reduction to downsizing its analytics team to a single “success team,” with many subsequently leaving due to natural attrition as well as a downsizing of the company’s customer success team.

Lufthansa and Accenture The company declined to comment on the matter and did not share any other details about its AI restructuring strategy. Duolingo did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The Budget Lab, a nonpartisan policy think tank at Yale University, issued a report a report on Wednesday which showed that business in the US has not been disrupted much by AI automation since ChatGPT was released in 2022.

The lab examined U.S. labor market data from November 2022 to July 2025 using a “dissimilarity index” that measures how much occupational mix — the share of workers in different jobs — has changed since AI first appeared and compared it to other technological shifts such as the introduction of computers and the Internet. It found that AI has not yet caused widespread job losses.

In addition, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued research in early September which showed that the use of AI among businesses “does not indicate significant declines in employment” across the services and manufacturing industry in the New York and northern New Jersey region.

It found that 40% of service companies said they were using AI this year, up from 25% last year, while manufacturing companies saw a similar jump from 16% last year to 26% this year, but very few were using AI to lay off workers.

Only 1% of service companies reported that AI was the reason for layoffs in the past six months, down from the 10% that laid off workers using AI in 2024. Meanwhile, 12% of service companies said that AI caused them to hire fewer workers in 2025.

By contrast, 35% of service companies have used AI to retrain employees, and 11% have hired more as a result.

Stefani said there is not a lot of evidence from his research that shows significant levels of technological unemployment due to AI.

“Economists call this structural unemployment, so the job pie is no longer big enough for everyone and so people will definitely lose their jobs because of AI, and I don’t think this is happening on a large scale,” he said.

Concerns about technology putting an end to human labor can be seen throughout history, he added.

“This century alone has happened dozens of times, and you can go back to ancient times where Roman emperors took control of certain machines because they were worried about that and the opposite always happened. The machine made companies and industries more productive.”

“It has allowed completely new jobs to emerge. If you think about the Internet 20 years ago, no one knew what a social media influencer was, what an app developer was because they didn’t exist.”

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