Over the last year, US corporate leaders have often explained layoffs by saying the positions were no longer needed because artificial intelligence had made their companies more efficient, replacing humans with computers.
But some economists and technology analysts have expressed skepticism about such justifications and instead think that such workforce cuts are driven by factors like the impact of tariffs, overhiring during the Covid-19 pandemic and perhaps simple maximising of profits.
While AI is having an impact on the workplace, experts suggest tariffs, overhiring during the pandemic and simply maximising profits may be bigger factors
In short, the CEOs are allegedly engaged in “AI-washing”.
“You can say, ‘We are integrating the newest technology into our business processes, so we are very much a technological frontrunner, and we have to let go of these people,’” said Fabian Stephany, a departmental research lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute.
In 2025, AI was cited as a reason for more than 54,000 layoffs, according to a December report from the consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In January, Amazon alone laid off 16,000 workers after making 14,000 reductions in October.




After three days of dramatic and often surprising competition, the United States claimed the Olympic gold medal in the figure skating team competition on Sunday night.
The Brentano String Quartet had finished their performance when a special guest dropped in backstage: the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “We thanked her for everything she had done for our country,” recalls violinist Mark Steinberg. “It was a nice moment.”
Noam Chomsky and his wife, Valeria, made a “grave mistake” and were “careless” not to thoroughly research the background of Jeffrey Epstein, Valeria Chomsky said in a lengthy statement on Saturday, adding also that Epstein had deceived them.
Every morning, university professor Hassan El-Nabih straps his briefcase and laptop to his bicycle and rides out in search of a place with electricity and an internet connection, hoping to reach his students online.
Over the span of four years, 50-year-old Fidda Mohammad Naasan and her family have been violently uprooted from their homes and lands in the occupied West Bank, not once but twice. Now, after relocating for a second time they continue to face relentless, daily attacks and abuse from Israeli settlers and soldiers determined to force them off their lands yet again.
Russia offered the US a $12 trillion economic cooperation package, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.





























