At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power -- using economics, history, and policy as a set of tools to explore the meaning behind today's chaotic headlines. As a writer, I'm interested in topics ranging from labor struggles to transit breakthroughs to startups nobody asked for.
ArticleBody:For years, any American kid eying a stable, future-proof job was told to 'learn to code.' Now in 2025, anyone who followed that advice faces a painful reckoning: a decade of booming computer science enrollments has created a massive pile-up of graduates entering an abysmal job market.
A new report by the analyst firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks layoffs across various industries, found that the US tech industry had the highest number of layoffs in October of any sector, with a whopping 33,281 tech workers out of the job. That's an awfully high number for one month, and it looks even worse in context — just a month earlier, the number of tech industry layoffs was only 5,639. Tech companies are planning to lay off 141,159 jobs this year so far, per the report, up from 120,470 over the same period in 2024. And it likely may not look much better in the near future, either. 'It’s possible with rate cuts and a strong showing in November, companies may make a late-season push for employees,' the report reads, 'but at this point, we do not expect a strong seasonal hiring environment in 2025.' The analysis was spotted by SF Gate, which reported that tech company job cuts in the US are at their highest levels since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a short-lived recession. For the month of October, however, the analyst report notes that total layoffs haven't been this high since 2003 — in other words, not even the global financial crisis was this much of a bloodbath. While it's easy to blame AI for the tech industry layoffs, CG&C highlights some other factors contributing to the dismal labor news. 'October's pace of job cutting was much higher than average for the month,' the firm wrote. 'Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes.' Across all industries, 'those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market,' the report commentary read. The depressing economic news comes as tech companies look to be some of the first adopters of their own AI systems, a proving ground of sorts for the software they hope will bring about a new stage of human civilization. Last week, Amazon cut some 14,000 jobs within its corporate offices, with thousands more likely on the way. Over the summer, when Microsoft sacked 9,000 employees, its CEO suggested freshly-unemployed workers turn to AI chatbots to help 'reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.' Meanwhile, there's plenty of reason to doubt that AI is actually capable of replacing thousands of employees — a narrative tech executives have a material interest in maintaining. While some companies like Amazon were surely over-bloated following pandemic hiring sprees, AI is mostly failing when used to improve revenue streams, the reason companies execute these layoffs in the first place. The question, then, is how much deeper the layoffs are going to go — something only some of the most powerful corporate executives can answer. More on labor: The AI Industry Is Traumatizing Desperate Contractors in the Developing World for Pennies
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