The layoffs don't pay off, but they keep coming; India's call centers hire 17 in nine months; Anthropic funds research into smoothing its own labor disruption; "AI-first world" is code for a layoff

Start with a question that workers ask and executives avoid. If a company replaces people with AI, does the company actually make more money?A new analysis this week says the answer is often no. Gartner studied 350 firms and found that the companies cutting the most jobs showed no improvement in their financial returns. The cuts looked decisive. The payoff did not arrive.Listen on Apple PodcastsNevertheless, the cutting keeps going. Tech layoffs are running at about 1,115 a day in 2026, and more than half of those events name AI as a reason. The damage falls hardest on the youngest workers. The junior share of tech hiring has dropped from about 15% of jobs to 7% since 2023. Recent computer science graduates now face an unemployment rate near 6.1%. The first rung of the career ladder is the rung companies are sawing off.So who catches these workers when they fall? One of the companies building the tools just put money toward answering that question. Anthropic announced a $200 million Economic Futures Research Fund on June 10, paired with a $150 million fellowship program for early-career workers. The combined pledge reaches $350 million.Its CEO, Dario Amodei, went further in a personal essay. He argued that government should promise economic support to people displaced by AI. He floated universal basic income funded by taxes on AI companies or higher capital-gains rates.However, the clearest picture of the disruption comes from India. The country’s business-process-outsourcing (BPO) industry, the call centers and back offices that the world hires to handle routine work, added only 17 net employees in the first nine months of fiscal 2026. Not 17,000. Seventeen.For an industry that once absorbed hundreds of thousands of young graduates a year, that number marks a near-total stop. The entry door into India’s service economy is closing, and AI is holding it shut.BUY NOW! Get the NEW Book that exposes the Narratives Tech uses to build its AI Empire. $4.95 flat fee for Kindle, Nook, Tablets, and Mobile. No subscription required.3.5-hr reading time.Now the countervailing evidence, because this story runs in more than one direction. A survey of more than 350 public-company CEOs found that 67% expect AI to increase their entry-level hiring this year, and 58% plan to add senior leaders too.These executives describe AI as reshaping work rather than erasing it. Treat this as a feeling, not a result. The survey was taken late last year, and intentions and outcomes often part ways. Still, it signals that some leaders plan to hire more.BUY NOW! Get the book that examines how the AI invasion already happened. You just weren’t invited. $9.95 flat fee for Kindle, Nook, Tablets, and Mobile. No subscription required. 2-hr reading time.The cuts that did land this week fit the familiar pattern. The crypto-data firm Dune eliminated a quarter of its staff on June 15. The marketing company Gambling.com is cutting a quarter of its workforce, and its incoming chief executive framed the move as building for an “AI-first world.” The phrase has become the standard caption for a layoff.So, the job cuts often fail to pay off, yet they continue. The young get hit first. One AI maker is funding the search for answers while asking the public to help foot the bill. The honest reading is that nobody, not the CEOs cutting jobs and not the ones promising to hire, knows yet where this AI makeover is heading.The AI/Labor Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The AI & Work Chronicle at ailabor.substack.com/subscribe