The Current - The AI jobs cuts are here

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

As tech companies shift towards innovations in artificial intelligence, companies like Amazon, Meta and IBM have announced tens of thousands job cuts. And this is having a trickle down effect on entry-level positions. We speak with Bibi Souza, a Vancouver software engineer and BC’s head of Women in Tech, about how the work of junior engineers has been on the decline with the adoption of AI tools that can code. We also speak with Sandra Lavoy, a manager with the global recruitment agency, Robert Half, about how to break into this challenging job market.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. You know, a career in the tech industry used to be a pretty safe bet, but university grads like AJ Keskecourt are having trouble finding a job. I am feeling like an outcast. When I open the job postings and everything, it stresses me out. Stresses me out indeed.

In the year after she graduated, AJ applied to dozens of entry-level tech jobs in Vancouver. I learned a lot about computer engineering, the software part of it, the hardware part of it, but right now the AI is taking over most of the stuff. Like most of the junior positions are taken and most of the intermediate positions are being taken by the people who are laid off. So for like the people like me who are recently graduated and who doesn't have too much experience are trying to figure out how to get in the industry. AJ's experience is part of a global shift in the tech sector. In the past few months, companies like Amazon, Meta, and Apple announced tens of thousands

of job cuts. In November, IBM said it was laying off 3,000 employees. It shifts its focus to businesses in artificial intelligence. AI is starting to impact the labor market as well, and this at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty in the economy. And young people are struggling to find their footing. in new careers. Beebe Susa is a software engineer with a decade of experience in that industry. She also heads the BC chapter of women in tech. It's a global non-profit that promotes gender

diversity in the tech industry. She is in Vancouver. Bebe, good morning. Good morning. Does that what you just heard from AJ sound familiar, saying that, you know, feeling like an outcast in the job market right now? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, when I moved to Vancouver 10 years ago, it wasn't like that at all. The employer market was just very, very different. You could get a position as a junior, even with no experience, no internship experience. Nowadays, with AI, like AJ mentioned, it's very difficult. Even if you do have experience, of course, I have a lot of experience under my belt, and so I don't struggle as much. But when I talk to people like AJ and other people that are just graduating from university, that come to my events and they share their struggles,

I do feel for them because I know the market is awful out there. It's so difficult. If you don't have experience, it's practically impossible to land a role as a junior nowadays. A software developer in Vancouver called it a bloodbath. I agree with that. I definitely do. If you think about it, all of these layoffs, these people that work at big tech, they're so talented. They have all of this experience.

And coming into the market, they are, of course, And so when you put some senior engineer versus a junior engineer for a junior position, if the senior person is willing to take a pay cut like I was, that was exactly what happened to me. If the senior engineer is willing to take a pay cut, they'll take that junior role. And that's exactly what's happening out there. That's what I see from my lens. How has artificial intelligence contributed to that? I believe artificial intelligence is giving companies a sense of augmentation of staff, but it's not real. So what I mean by that is a software engineer that knows how to use AI properly can essentially create the output of five engineers. And so why would you pay five engineers if you could pay one and just teach them how to use AI?

So that's essentially what I think is happening out there. It's just companies think they can replace people with just AI, workflows, AI, LLM models, and things of that sort. And that's what's happening you believe right now. That's what's leading to the bloodbath is that employers think, well, why would I need this person, what I could have, or these people, when I could have the machine do that job instead. Absolutely, absolutely. Exactly what's happening. Because AI, if you think about it, like two, three years ago, it wasn't really that smart, right? However, it's been, it's made a leaps, huge leaps in intelligence.

And it's crazy how it's actually able to do a lot of my day to day. It is a bit scary. And I still remember when the company I was working for at the time was introducing AI workflows into my day to day. And of course, I felt a little bit of a, this doesn't feel right. it's literally doing my job for me. And of course, they kept pushing and pushing and eventually I gave in and I was like, okay, fine, let me use this. And I was just astonished, like the amount of work I could do in a day equaled to like a week, a week's worth of work. And so I do see the value from a company perspective, but what I don't see is there's no planning around the shift.

The shift is just like a cold turkey, lay people off, and they'll figure themselves out. And so that's what I see and how I feel, yeah. In your own experience, I mean, as you mentioned, you were working in the tech sector and then the company that you were working with introduced AI. What did they bring AI in for? So as software engineers, we essentially code all day. And one of the ways that they wanted us to start leveraging AI was as a software engineers, we essentially code all day. And one of the ways that they wanted us to start leveraging AI was as a like a code, like a code helper. So it helps you code.

Helps you code faster. It helps find files for you. It helps you write the code itself and test it. And so it's essentially like a mini software engineer right beside you all day telling you this is the right thing for you to do. And you do it and it's right. And so it's oftentimes correct in its assumptions. Of course, it does backfire. the times and I've seen a lot of the outputs that AI gives me to be completely complete hallucinations.

So it's not always accurate, but for a computer to help you in that sense, I find a fantastic. Did you think it was going to take your job at the time? Not at the time, because it wasn't that smart. Back then, it wasn't that smart. But nowadays, I feel a bit, not useless, but I feel like I don't matter as a person because my ideas that I bring to the table, usually AI will bring better ideas to the table. And I'm like, oh, okay, great. So I'm also learning. But at the same time, it does make me feel like the shift is happening way too fast. I can't really keep up with all the, all of the changes every week, every day. So. And not keeping up. I mean, you eventually did lose your job, right? I did. Twice.

Yes, yes. And so those were different occurrences, but I want to talk about the one where I know it was a technical, like a matter of a technical issue, if that makes sense. But like I mentioned, they were starting to introduce AI into our workflows. And of course, we had plenty of engineers. We had about 10. So if 10 engineers leveraging AI can output essentially the work of 30 engineers, you can start kind of cutting the bottom line down, right? If you think in terms of revenue. And that's kind of what happened. It's, you know, you have 10 engineers making a lot of money because all of these years, software engineers are known to have really good salaries in big tech, right? And so, you know, you have you start having to cut down the bottom line and then replace that with AI. So your output is the same, but now your team spends a lot less cash.

So from a company perspective, it did make sense, but it was very sudden when it happened to me. It was very sudden. I wasn't expecting it at all. I was just coming into work that morning and I was just called into a room before anybody got into the office. And so it felt very cold, you know. There was no transition or let's.

reskill you or let's see if you can maybe fit into a different department or a different team. There was nothing like that offered at all, not even A, let's work on your performance, because I don't think it was a performance issue. It was really just a matter of the numbers. And when it's a matter of numbers, it's really cold how they just let you go like that, right? And you believe, you believe that you lost your job specifically, just to be clear, specifically because of AI being introduced to that work. I believe so. Yes, I believe so. That is my opinion. And so where did you end up? What are you doing now? So I was able to very quickly pivot due to my network.

So because I do a lot of work in the community, I get to meet amazing people and I've been able to thankfully network and just know amazing companies out there and have really good contacts. And so I've always been able to land on my feet because I have a really strong network behind me. And when I'm talking to juniors as well, this is always my advice to them is network, go to events, meet people, keep in touch with them, take them out for a coffee because that's how I really got my break into tech and also how I've been able to stay in tech after being laid off is just leveraging the opportunities that are out there because, you know, you don't always get all the roles posted on LinkedIn, right? Or any job boards. Some opportunities, they are just internal. And so if you know the right people, you get a referral. And so I always tell everyone, network, leverage your network. And so that's how I've been able to stay afloat and still be in tech. But I will say this. I am planning to pivot out of software engineering because I just know that my job as a software engineer is completely obsolete five years from now. Well, you're working for an AI company now, right?

I used to. I used to. Yeah, I just, I don't know if I can say this, but I just decided to leave and I'm actually pivoting into a different side of tech. It's a more human side of technology because that's what I believe in. I think tech needs a bit of a human side and I want to leverage my human skills and all of that that I have to bring value to people that need it. But what do you think the job market, I mean, you've kind of hinted at this, for people who are in the tech field, people who are software engineers, for example, what is that going to look like in five years? Will those jobs exist, do you think? Junior is definitely not. Junior roles, I just know. And even nowadays, if I go to a job board, there's barely anything. There's barely anything. If there are junior roles or internships, they're usually internal roles or they're, you know, people are. just applying as references, they don't get advertised. And so I just know five years from now, junior roles will not exist. And I feel very strongly about that. The intermediate role, that's going to become the new junior role. So you're going to have to have a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge to break into tech in the future.

It's just going to be expected a lot more. And now with AI, of course, it enables us to learn a lot quicker. and I've seen people that are actually juniors just break into the intermediate level just by learning with AI and it's crazy. I appreciate that. I do think that side of AI is positive so it does enable us to learn a lot faster.

But moving forward, there will be no junior roles. It's either senior or intermediate. The intermediate will be the new junior rule. So just finally, what does that mean then for people who went into? school thinking that these jobs would be, as I said at the beginning, a safe bet. They're now coming out into a very different world a few years later. What happens with them? That's a great question. That's a great question. I do think if you're coming out of school

and you did software engineering or anything related to tech, your best bet is to learn how to use AI, learn how to leverage it, learn how to insert that into your day-to-day. Even if it might take your job down the road. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the people that stay, and this is exactly what happened to me, the people that stay are the ones that know how to 10x themselves using AI, because then you're unstoppable. And so I feel like for people coming out of school, learn how to use AI, learn how to build AI if you can. That would be, yeah, that would be my recommendation is to learn AI and learn how to build AI tools.

Bibi, thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. B.B. Sousa is a software engineer in Vancouver and the head of the BC chapter of women in tech. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivered. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough.

Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.ca. Are your pipes ready for a deep freeze? You can take action to help protect your home from extreme weather. Discover prevention tips that can help. help you be climate ready at keep it intact.ca. We mentioned those schools, universities are closely watching the changes in the tech job

market. Shabnam Ivkovich is director for industry relations at the University of Waterloo. We are a tech institution, very strong tech focus. So there's a deep understanding that preparing this generation for the world of work for tomorrow happens today. I know we do our best. to help students realize that there's a shift happening and the need to walk along with it,

we are still persevering. We're getting the students into spots where they need to be. She's responsible for the school's co-op program, which places something like 25,000 students a year in work-term employment. AI has made it a little more complex. I myself know recent grads who still haven't landed a job. You need to apply to far more opportunities today, then you would have in the past to land that job.

The fight is harder. The fight is more aggressive. Job recruiters are also seeing a shift as companies adopt AI, especially in the availability of entry-level positions. Sandra LaVoy is the Metro Market Manager for Robert Haft. It's a global recruitment agency. She's in charge of operations for Ottawa and Quebec, and she is in Ottawa this morning.

Sandra, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. We heard words like bloodbath being applied to the job market and the tech sector in Vancouver. How would you describe how challenging that market is right now compared to, say, a handful of years ago? It's a lot more challenging and the market is also very volatile because of the economic uncertainty happening in most of our markets. And new grads are really challenged by how to get into the market.

What do they need to do is very different to. than what it looked like even six months or a year ago. How has artificial intelligence contributed to that? Employers don't rely as much on AI because of the challenges on interviewing. As an example, a lot of our candidates are using AI so much to present themselves that they really don't show the true authentic person. Or it's a mirror of another 50 resumes that the employer just got and they can't see the true person through the resume. And that's been a huge challenge because the resume does not

fit the skill set when they meet the person. So that's, it has been huge for us. I want to come back to that in a moment. Are you seeing, I mean, the great fear about artificial intelligence is that it's going to take our jobs. Are you seeing that happen already? Some of it, but other skills are needed. So what we're seeing a lot of is companies today are so lean, Matt, that they need, the existing employees upskill or retrain and at times there's been maybe early retirement

there's been change in skills they need to hire and a lot of the projects that should have been done three and five years ago have now come to a head where they need to hire so there is some hiring happening but very specific skills

and expertise needed. But Bibi was suggesting that entry level positions are disappearing. You have the CEO of Shopify telling people who work for his company saying, you know, you need to prove that AI can't do this job before you hire a human being. Are there examples from the companies you work with where they have said, you know what, we don't need to hire 10 people. We'll hire one person and AI will cover the rest. We have seen some of it, especially in the larger organization, where it's high transaction base, where AI can help out. But the human aspect and the creativity

and that authentic type of person is still needed. But yes, have we seen roles gone? For sure we have. But different skill sets are needed also, Matt. I mean, it's interesting because it's not just the tech sector. There was a survey of middle market companies that show that something like 91% have adopted generative AI somehow and some way within their company that suggests that there are many different fields,

not just tech that are affected to some degree. From your perspective, how have you seen AI impacting jobs beyond that tech sector? Well, I would say if you look at finance and accounting, some of the commodity work or the entry-level positions have been just abolished in some cases or really significantly reduced. I was talking to a large public company and they've reduced 40% of their transactional based employees, which has been replaced. placed by AI. That's a lot, but different skills. Data analytics are needed now. So there's a lot of different skills that are needed, even though that transactional based position has been abolished. What happens if the entry level positions are eliminated and then you need to figure out who's going to fill those middle level or senior positions? How can you train somebody up if they haven't

had an entry level opportunity? The way we look for a position now, Matt, has changed. We can not just rely on going on LinkedIn, like BB was saying earlier, or just send a bunch of resumes. You really need to network, use your alumni, go to local networking events. I say, Chamber of Commerce or whatever your market is holding, and get to know people, get to know hiring managers, get yourself out there so they see that true authentic person and make a statement of who you are and what you can offer an organization. instead of using technology to get into a company and only using that tool will not get you there and you cannot differentiate yourself. You've used that phrase a few times, the true authentic person.

What does that mean? People and companies need that team-based approach, that collaboration, that external focus to deal with clients. You cannot do it behind a computer and not being able to interact at a high level with other employees. other clients, and that is really needed. The days where you could just sit behind your computer and not be part of the business to drive your business's success has changed. And they need to see somebody who is really involved and collaborate with the balance of the organization.

And not just your team, but other teams within the company. Because it's interesting. Artificial intelligence is being used by many companies to sift through those resumes, you know, resumes, that might come in, the thousands and thousands of resumes. But you're suggesting that it's also being used by people as they do the interviews. If they get an interview, tell me more about that and what is lost if people are, as you said, just kind of behind the screen and the employer doesn't get a sense as to who they really are.

So what we've seen is, and I've seen it myself, is that you're interviewing somebody on Zoom or teams or whatever tool you're using, and there's multiple screens. So they'll have two screens to help answer the question. questions. Or they have AI helping answer the questions and you'll see the pause. So a lot of our clients at Robert Half are now saying, we want the interviews face to face, where even two years ago, Matt, we were not seeing any of that. So now our clients are like, we want to see the true person. We want to meet them face to face to see what human skills will they bring to our organization and how will they fit in our culture, the technical skills that we can

evaluate. So that's a real big shift in interviewing. What does that mean for people who are applying? I mean, we hear stories of people who send thousands and thousands of applications in and they get no replies. How do you land a job in 2025? Getting to the interview is one thing, but how do you actually get through the door in the first place? First of all, you've got to network. You've got to meet hiring managers at different networking event. Number one. Number two, go to a talent solution or a staffing firm. Take a contract. Get yourself in the door, even if it's a three-month contract or two-month contract, to show what you can offer an organization, to also show that you have some type of experience. Also, a lot of areas that we're seeing is user groups, attend user groups. This will allow you better networking. We cannot just network online. We really need to network face to face. And you can't just send in applications? You're not going to differentiate yourself, Matt, because one of the biggest challenges we're

seeing is that AI is so used to develop resumes. They all look the same. We could get 100 resumes. 80 will look identical that they're mirroring the job description. Just finally, do you understand that the anxiety that a lot of grads feel? They feel like, I mean, somebody said that they feel like an outcast earlier in the program, they feel like the market is not receptive to them and that those jobs just simply don't exist. Do you understand the anxiety that a lot of them feel? Absolutely.

But there's also another anxiety that the new grads have skills that the more tenured or more mature employees, where they're worried, they're going to lose their job because they feel overwhelmed by AI and also getting upskilled or getting training to get their skills up to keep their job. So there's two ways to live. look at it. You've got the new grads are so great in technology. And then you've got employees

that are working at a company that can't handle the AI and are just overwhelmed by it. Almost 50% of employees today, they're in companies, have anxiety and are concerns about will they retain their job because their skills are not up to date. So you've got both sides. Yeah, well, it suggests the job market in years ahead is not going to look at all like it did have been passed. A hundred percent agree with you. Sandra, thank you very much for this. Thank you, Matt. Sandra LaVoy is a metro market manager with Robert Half.

It's a global recruitment agency, and she was in Ottawa. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.