Anxieties about AI putting people out of jobs is bubbling over: A Reuters/Ipsos poll from August 2025 found 71% of Americans feared permanent job loss as a result of AI. Last week, Amazon announced 16,000 roles across the company would be slashed, adding to a total of more than 30,000 job cuts since October 2025. The move coincided with Amazon’s push toward AI development, though the tech giant attributed the reductions to an attempt to slash bureaucracy, not the technology.
A recent report from the Yale Budget Lab suggests there’s something to Amazon’s assertions that these mass cuts, even at tech companies, are not the result of AI displacing workers.
