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New data reveals only 1.4% of laid-off workers have been replaced by AI<\/p>\n
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Meta just laid off<\/a> 8,000 employees May 20, as it accelerates AI investments and promises to pay out massive stock options to shareholders linked to AI rollout success. <\/p>\n This year has seen the highest number of tech layoffs since the pandemic employment upheaval, and most of these have been attributed by employers to AI rollout and implementation, fuelling the fear that AI is already replacing hundreds of thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n But on closer inspection, the data shows a contrasting reality: poor financial performance, the \u201chope\u201d of AI, and a myriad other reasons.<\/p>\n This week, I had the chance to catch up with Adecco Group CEO Denis Machuel on my podcast, and he told me that, according to fresh research, only 1.4% of laid off workers have been directly replaced by AI.<\/p>\n This means that layoffs are designed to shed employees deemed as excess weight in an organization, when in actuality, the detrimental impact of layoffs leaves more load and greater pressure on remaining teams.<\/p>\n And yet, AI is often used as the smokescreen.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s hype around AI, as we know, right?\u201d Machuel began. \u201cAnd a lot of speculation around, you know, how many jobs AI is going to destroy. Well, actually, if you look at the facts and layoff plans that companies are implementing, it\u2019s different to what we assume. Just three months ago, we were asking the people that have been laid off because of AI, what they had been replaced by,\u201d he said. “Only 1.4% of those people have been replaced by AI. <\/p>\n \u201cSo this overall narrative around \u2018I\u2019m laying off workers because I\u2019m implementing AI\u2019 is an easy way for companies to look attractive to the financial markets because of the productivity,\u201d he said, referring to stocks rising and falling in sync with layoff announcements.<\/p>\n What\u2019s Actually Going On Behind The Scenes After Layoffs?<\/p>\n Machuel is not the only one embracing this idea. At Workhuman\u2019s Forum London<\/a> 2026, CEO Eric Mosley shared the same sentiments–but took it a step further.<\/p>\n In his keynote, Mosley demonstrated what happens in organizations that rush into AI adoption and act based on blind optimism:<\/p>\n He referred to research that shows more than 80% of AI projects fail, wasting billions of dollars and resourcesNo more than 10% of respondents to a McKinsey survey report scaling AI agents in any business function (knowledge management, risk, HR, marketing and sales, etc.)<\/p>\n Mosley explained: <\/p>\n \u201cOften, employers are initiating layoffs because of optimism about AI, rather than the layoffs being anchored in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n So here\u2019s the situation workers are faced with:<\/p>\n AI is not yet replacing work at the scale most AI layoff headlines imply. <\/p>\n