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The rise of artificial intelligence has become a recurring theme behind recent layoffs in the tech industry.
Job reductions in the sector surpassed 100,000 year to date, reaching 106,630 as of July 12, according to the tracker Layoffs.fyi.
The most recent mass layoff in the tech industry involved Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), the parent company behind Credit Karma, QuickBooks and TurboTax. It was revealed the company plans to release 1,800 employees as it focuses on AI and reworks its products from traditional workflows to AI-native processes.
However, Intuit is not replacing these workers with AI bots, rather it is replacing them with employees who have a better understanding of working with AI. Intuit expects to hire about 1,800 new employees with skills primarily in product, engineering, and customer-facing roles such as customer success, marketing and sales.
According to the 2024 Economic Report of the President, as much as 20% of the U.S. workforce is at high exposure to possible AI-related job displacement.
Intuit was not the only tech company to announce a large-scale layoff last week. On July 8, the UiPath (NYSE:PATH) board of directors approved a plan to decrease its global workforce by about 10%, or 420 positions.
UiPath is also transitioning its business to have a greater focus on generative AI.
On July 3, OpenText (NASDAQ:OTEX) revealed its plan to cut about 1,200 positions.
Once again, OpenText is currently restructuring its business to have a greater focus on AI. The company plans to eventually hire about 800 new roles in sales, professional services and engineering.
These latest layoffs follow sizable cuts last month by ByteDance (BDNCE), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and Meta (META).