We are in a very interesting time when it comes to having a protected job in this country.
Certain aspects of the economy have trimmed jobs, with two major corporations announcing massive cuts just this week.
Then there is the elephant in the room, which is AI, and people really need to learn how to adapt or fall to the side of this evolving machine.
For any city with an Amazon warehouse, the jobs used to be plentiful, but that is no longer the case.
This month, the company announced 16,000 cuts, which brings the total to 30,000 since October.
Beth Galetti, a senior vice president, stated, "Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months. That's not our plan.”
She continued, "But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate. That's never been more important than it is today in a world that's changing faster than ever."
One of the giants in DIY also announced that it was trimming 800 jobs from its customer support center in Atlanta.
Home Depot also ended its remote working for all corporate employees, stating, "We’re simplifying our corporate operations to better support our stores and our customers. These changes include a reduction in roles associated with our store support center and a transition to a five-day in-office schedule for our corporate staff."
UPS also trimmed about 30,000 jobs recently, as these layoffs have started to mount.
COVID changed a lot for a lot of businesses, but so did AI. And I would bet dollars to donuts that these companies are making better use of AI, eliminating salaries in favor of an AI subscription that, simply put, can do a better job than a human, and it is far more reliable.
I can tell you as a writer, AI has been a game-changer. Research, fact-checking, article proofing, and even recommendations can all be done in seconds rather than an hour of handing an article down the line for proofing. Can you imagine the difference it is making for these companies that can now automate relevant processes?
A recent article in Forrester projected that AI and automation were going to claim 6% of all jobs in this country by 2030, and I honestly doubt that it will take even that long.
The solution is pretty simple, however… make yourself indispensable by learning how to use AI. Rest assured, anyone who knows me knows I am about as allergic to technology as one can be, but I use AI every day. Not only that, but the ways I use it are constantly evolving and improving.
Here is my tip for the day… get an AI program, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, set up a simple task, then start to have a conversation with the AI about what you like and don’t like about how it completed the task. Continue doing the task, and continue the feedback. In fact, the feedback should never end. After that thread goes for a few days, ask AI to give you a prompt for that task for what you have discussed to that point. Do that, and I promise you, you are likely ahead of about 99% of the people not actually working in AI today.
