As work is redefined and hiring resets, more turmoil may hit the job market

As work gets redefined and companies reset hiring, expect more turmoil in the job market

The process is almost robotic. The office entry badge is disabled and laptop access denied before that final email from HR: ‘You were good, but are no longer required. A courier will deliver your belongings.’

 

The sentiment is exaggerated here, but for thousands of employees across the global tech industry, it rings kind of true — it’s the new, automated way of getting a pink slip. Over the past year, techn­ology giants from Amazon and Microsoft to Intel, Oracle and Tata Consultancy Servi­ces (TCS) have announced waves of layoffs, with global moves impacting India as well.

 

Some cite “efficiency” while others call it a “strategic reset”. Whatever the label, experts see a structural transformation reshaping global employment: Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven productivity, where the “focus is shifting from headcount to skill count”, points out Rituparna Chakraborty, partner, India, True Search, a global executive talent firm.

 

Over-hiring during the pandemic amid a pivot to digitisation is also seen as a reason behind these layoffs, as companies reset, use more automated tools and cut the headcount. Around 30 per cent of code is written by AI and this is increasing. Companies like Amazon can run warehouses with robots.

 

“This isn’t a crisis — it’s a correction,” said Chakraborty. “Most large technology companies expanded rapidly between 2020 and 2022 to meet digital demand. As growth normalises, leaders are refocusing on margins, shareholder expectations, and capital efficiency. Toda­y’s layoffs are more about redesigning for future competitiveness than undoing pandemic over-hiring.”

 

That pandemic hiring spree was driven by rapid digital transformation. Big Tech doubled down on ecommerce, cloud computing and digital collaboration. Amazon alone tripled its corporate headcount between 2017 and 2022. Microsoft expanded hiring by 22 per cent in 2021-22.

 

Now, growth has cooled, and more tasks are being done by AI, which, in turn, demands fresh investments.

 

 R Srikrishna, chief executive officer (CEO) of Hexaware Technologies, a Mumbai-based global tech firm, said in a recent interview: “The Big Tech model used to be asset-light and people-heavy. The next decade will look more like an (AI) asset business. They need money to invest in that — and one way is by squeezing labour.”

 

According to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks tech industry layoffs, 112,000 tech jobs had vanished in 2025 as of November 2, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024. Companies are cutting payrolls even as they spend billions on new GPUs (chips that power AI), data centres, and AI systems. Companies are investing more in hardware to run AI than in humans.

 

Growth without hiring

 

During Amazon’s quarterly earnings call last week, CEO Andy Jassy insisted the reasons for layoffs were not financial. “A giant company can’t afford to move slowly,” he said, describing the move as a “cultural reset”. Amaz­on’s goal is to be “scrappy again,” even as it becomes one of the world’s largest AI and robotics players.

 

In June this year, Amazon deployed its one-millionth robot in a warehouse — a milestone, notched up in Japan, compared with just one robot in 2021. Today, Amazon’s Proteus robots move freely among humans: Pegasus handles individual parcels, while Hercules can lift and shift up to 650 kg at one go. Amazon’s two new projects, Blue Jay and Project Eluna, combine robotics and AI to make machines multi-skilled. So instead of the robot doing just one task — lift and shift goods, for instance — it can also check warehouse inventory, scan new orders, place barcodes, and ship boxes to the right addresses.

 

Amazon did not respond to an email query on layoffs in India but directed Business Standard to a post by Beth Galetti, senior vice-president of people experience and technology at Amazon, which mentioned 14,000 layoffs in the company’s corporate workforce. Galetti said in the note dated October 28, “Looking ahead to 2026, as Andy (CEO Amazon) talked about earlier this year, we expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realise efficiency gains.”

 

 A Morgan Stanley report, quoted in CNBC, estimates the automation drive could save Amazon $4 billion annually by 2027, cutting labour costs and processing orders 40 per cent faster. A human warehouse worker costs about $34,000 a year, while a robot costs around $3,000 a year in maintenance and works without breaks.

 

With AI increasingly part of the playbook, companies are reevaluating employee needs. Retailer Walmart and homestay marketplace Airbnb plan to grow without hiring, at least in the short term. Facebook owner Meta recently cut 600 roles in its AI division, while simultaneously expanding its investment in large-language models.

 

At Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella is re-hiring — but differently. “We will grow our headcount,” he said on the BG2 Podcast. “But that headcount will grow with a lot more leverage than what we had pre-AI.”

 

In other words, more productivity per person. Nadella calls it “an unlearning and learning process.” Inside Mi­cr­osoft, every function — from planning to execution — now begins with AI. Empl­o­yees are encouraged to res­earch with AI and think wi­th AI as a companion. The next wave of employees won’t just use AI, “They’ll build, tra­in, and think with it,” he added.

 

While job losses are visible, the bigger shift is in how work itself is being redefined. “Generative AI is a catalyst for workforce redesign. Organisations are reassessing skill mixes and automating repeatable fun­c­tio­ns — not merely to cut costs but to free capacity for innovation,” said Chakraborty.

 

Support and mid-management roles are shrinking, but AI, cybersecurity, and product teams are expanding. “It’s a reallocation of talent rather than contraction. The demand for professionals who can interpret, train, and govern AI systems continues to outpace supply,” she adds.

 

Across the industry, roles are morphing faster than they’re disappearing. Job descriptions now include prompts like ‘AI co-pilot literacy,’ ‘LLM governance,’ and ‘data ethics oversight.’ A decade ago, digital literacy was optional; today, companies seek AI proficiency among new hires.

 

Companies are flattening hierarchies to speed decision-making. AI tools have made it easier to compress layers of management; what once required teams of analysts can now be done by a few AI-literate generalists. 

 

 

Reinventing work

 

For Praveen Bhadada, CEO of Gurgaon-based consultancy Neovay Global, this moment is not just about loss of jobs but reinvention. “The more fundamental story is one of transformation, not contraction. Both ‘doer’ and ‘manager’ roles are evolving rapidly. The definition of traditional tech jobs is being rewritten,” said Bhadada.

 

He points to the mainstreaming of gig-based roles, fractional CXOs (C-suite executives who provide part-time, project-based expertise instead of being full-time hires), and AI-native teams. “Companies want flexibility, resilience, and global reach. India is becoming the epicentre of this shift.”

 

That shift can also be seen in the rise of global capability centres (GCCs) in India. GCCs are transitioning from cost-saving tech hubs to “innovation and IP-led hubs for AI, data and software platforms,” said Bhadada. AstraZeneca, McDonald’s, Costco, and others have expanded GCCs for AI and data engineering. Semiconductor majors such as Micron are doing not just manufacturing but also R&D and validation work in India.

 

“The roles may look different,” said Bhadada, “but the opportunities are multiplying. This is not the end of tech jobs — it’s the beginning of a more dynamic, value-creating, globally distributed digital economy.”

 

India’s roughly two million GCC workforce is increasingly running global product mandates. “India remains a strategic beneficiary of global restructuring. While some roles have been affected, our talent ecosystem in AI, data, and cybersecurity is expanding,” said Chakraborty.

 

Even as companies reset with AI tools, employees are left coping with a challenging transition. AI’s expanding use in offices and warehou­ses alike is unsettling milli­o­ns of white-collar workers. Layoffs now arrive through automa­ted systems. In some cases, workers learn of the termination only when their ID cards stop working. HR emails read as if written by bots.

 

However, former Tech Mahindra CEO C P Gurnani said: “We see AI as a partner, not a replacement. And it’s always human plus AI not human or AI. The real opportunity is in using these tools to free up teams for more creative, strategic work that truly moves the needle for enterprises.” In 2024, Gurnani cofounded the AI startup AIonOS.

 

Every sector, from banking and retail to healthcare and manufacturing, is under pressure to re-engineer workflows. But it could be with fewer humans. For instance, if an ecommerce company sees a spike in sales and adds a new warehouse, that is likely to be without hiring warehouse staff. New hires could be experts who can maintain automated warehouse systems or robots. So, companies could keep scaling revenue without proportional job creation.

 

Many experts argue this churn is cyclical. The industrial revolution evicted weavers; computers displaced typists; now, AI is displacing routine cognition. The winners, they say, will be those who learn to partner with machines rather than compete against them. 

 

The writer is a New Delhi-based independent journalist