Gartner says a third of AI job cuts will reverse. Rehiring costs more.
Gartner forecast on Wednesday that by 2029, 30% of the employees laid off because AI replaced them will have to be hired back, often at a significantly higher cost.
CIO puts the rate inside enterprises higher, at 40%.
Tori Paulman, VP Analyst at Gartner, said executives "who use AI primarily as a tool for cost cutting risk making reductions that are too deep and too soon."
Two other datasets in the same CIO report point the same way. Forrester found 55% of businesses regret AI-driven cuts, and Robert Half found one in three hiring executives has already rehired after an AI layoff.
Mike Wilkes, enterprise CISO at Aikido Security, told CIO: "If 30% of AI-driven layoffs must be reversed, that is an enormous error rate for a strategic workforce decision."
CIO also reports more than half of enterprise clients have been handed a cost-reduction mandate. Headcount is the line those mandates can see.
Which line is your AI business case sitting on, and what happens when a third of the roles come back?
Sources
Our file on Gartner
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For your next steering committee
- 1Ask your integrator to name the people on your programme and to confirm which of them are staying.
- 2Ask what the contract says about replacing key people, and who approves a replacement.
- 3Ask where knowledge of your configuration is written down, outside the heads of the people who built it.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01