Happy Labor Day! Again!
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All those signs are going away. Bit by bit. Reduced health benefits (that cost more), increased automation, and now AI. Unions are drying up (since PATCO).
I know a few folks that work at Uber. Apparently they had a 10% reduction in workforce. A lot of those folks are rattled. The internal explanation appears to be “AI”, though I’m not sure in what capacity AI is being utilized there.
“Labor” Day is on it’s way to becoming an anachronism. Like Armistice Day. It will get renamed something else and people will forget about it.
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The decline long precedes PATCO. The peak of US labor membership was back in the early 1950s, some three-quarters of a century ago.
DB2
AI could be used in communications to justify job cuts.
Much more efficient than actual AI which requires development, training and infrastructure costs.
If you just reduce your labor force by 10% without the actual AI implementation, you get the efficiency gain of having the remaining 90% do all of the work without the pesky costs of “cloud” and so forth.
Happy Labor Day, indeed!
If that’s the case, then why were the 10% hired in the first place?
DB2
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Our CEO hated layoffs. We didn’t hire people we didn’t need. We ran somewhat lean**. His attitude was that if you layoff people in bad times, then when things ramp up you won’t be ready. You’ll have to hire new people, get them trained, and meanwhile the economy is booming without you.
I thought that made a lot of sense. If you were a good performer, you didn’t have to worry much. Mostly just PIPs. They’d let them go and call it a layoff.
** In the later years before I retired I did note we were getting top-heavy. People stayed with the company a long time, so a lot of VPs worked their way up from engineers. You want to reward them for a job well done, but that resulted in a lot of VPs when I left.
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(also known as International Workers’ Day or May Day) took place on Friday, May 1, 2026. It is a global observance celebrated in over 80 countries to honor worker contributions and advocate for labor rights.
Historical Origins: Rooted in the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago and the international struggle for an eight-hour workday.
US Context: While May 1 saw rallies and “No School, No Work, No Shopping” demonstrations organized by labor and community groups, the United States and Canada traditionally observe a separate national Labor Day on the first Monday of September (which fell on September 7, 2026).
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Hiring managers (or their hire-ups) deemed them as needed.
I would not pretend business decisions are 100% rational.
Decisions might be quite far away from 100% rational as I am sure many can attest to.