Browsing Tag

Future of work

48 posts

25,000 Civil Servants and 60,000 Exit Offers on the Same Day: Is Automation Now an Imperative? What Asia, Europe and the US Show

A long bright hallway in a modern government office building with closed wooden doors and archive boxes stacked by the wall
On the same day, the Netherlands said its budget cut means about 25,000 fewer central government jobs by 2035 and Microsoft offered exits to 60,000 staff. Is automation an imperative? Sixteen public and private organizations in Asia, Europe and the US, the reasons they give, the forces behind them (budgets, shareholders, competition, Hicks, the US tax tilt), where the argument is strong and where it is thin, and what it means for companies and workers.
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Will Robots Make Us All Rich? Ellison’s “Universal High Income”, South Korea’s Basic Income Pilot, and What the Trials Really Show

Two industrial robot arms assembling the timber frame of a small house on a green meadow at sunrise
Larry Ellison says taxing the value robots add could fund a “universal high income”, in more than a decade. South Korea already pays 150,000 won a month in local vouchers to residents of 17 rural counties. What Ellison said, how Korea’s pilot works and who pays, what the US, Finland, Kenya and Alaska trials really found, and what it means for companies and users.
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Is AI Really Behind the Layoffs? Employers Cited It for 120,136 US Job Cuts This Year. What the Data Shows

An empty open-plan office in morning light with a closed cardboard moving box and a small plant on a desk in the foreground
US employers named AI as the reason for 120,136 announced job cuts from January to September 2026, about 21% of the total, and 40% in May. By September it was 9%, while tech cuts rose. What companies say, what the New York Fed, NBER and HBR surveys and the filings show, five cases (Block, Visa, Microsoft, Innodata, Lao Gan Ma), why AI is an attractive reason, and what it means for companies and workers.
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Computer Science Enrollment Fell 12.4% This Fall. Is AI Really Taking the First Job?

A bright university lecture hall with rows of mostly empty wooden seats, a laptop and a backpack left on one desk
Computer science enrollment at U.S. four-year colleges fell 12.4% this fall, and graduate programs have lost 27.1% in two years. The headlines blame AI. The data point to layered causes: a hiring slump that began before generative AI, visa problems, students moving to neighbouring fields, and a growing AI effect on junior jobs. What it means for companies, students, parents and career switchers.
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AI Agents Now Start 4 in 10 Pull Requests on GitHub. The Bottleneck Has Moved to Review

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GitHub’s Octoverse 2026 says more than 40% of pull requests in September started with an AI agent’s first draft, up from 17% in March. What GitHub actually counted, why a 90% merge rate is not a quality score, what Copilot code review Max, approvals and Fusion cost, who answers for agent code that ships, and what it means for companies and developers.
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Amazon Tells Engineers to Stop Tokenmaxxing. Its Own AI Bets Show What Measuring Outcomes Really Means

A brass balance scale on a bright desk by a window: a small heap of tokens in the raised left pan, one wrapped parcel in the lowered right pan
Amazon’s engineering leadership calls token counts and AI usage metrics “deeply flawed” as targets: outcomes are what count. Its own AI bets tell the same story. Most flagship Nova models were wound down, while about $18 billion invested in Anthropic was carried at about $190 billion on June 30. What the memo says, what the numbers show, what companies should measure instead, and what to watch when Amazon reports on October 29.
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