It’s AI. My company has canceled at least one hire due to no longer needing the role since AI is doing 100% of the job.

And that’s how it’ll happen. Despite flashy layoffs (Oracle, Microsoft), most of the results of AI will be people who are not hired: junior and even mid-level people in various tech fields just aren’t obligatory to bring on board any longer. And that is only going to get worse.

So, in other words, the problem is not and won’t be firing. It’ll be lack of hiring.

And yes, this will soon happen to other fields¹, as it always does. As usual, tech just gets hit first.

1. Already is, really, but harder to see in the numbers just yet.