Over
the
last
year,
several
major
employers
—
including
at
least
one
Biglaw
firm
and
one
corporate
legal
department
—
have
announced
large-scale
layoffs,
citing
AI-driven
efficiency
as
a
rationale.
In
some
cases,
AI
may
be
merely
a
pretext
for
routine
cutbacks.
In
others,
AI
is
a
real
factor,
but
the
layoffs
are
driven
more
by
the
technology’s
potential
rather
than
by
its
reality.
According
to
a
recent
study
in
Harvard
Business
Review,
60%
of
more
than
1,000
global
executives
surveyed
said
they
had
reduced
headcount
in
anticipation
of
AI
efficiency
gains,
while
just
2%
said
they’d
made
large
reductions
based
on
actual
AI
results.
One
likely
result
of
decisions
based
on
wishful
thinking
is
that
many
people
who
were
fired
will
end
up
being
rehired.
As
reported
in
Law.com,
both
the
advisory
firm
Gartner
and
Forrester
Research
predict
that
half
of
AI-attributed
layoffs
will
be
reversed.
Legal
recruiter
Daniel
Vahab
told
Law.com
that
some
employers
have
been
acting
out
of
“FOMO.”
“They
went
with
the
trend
and
the
hype,
and
it’s
sort
of
backfired,”
he
noted,
“and
now
a
lot
of
firms
are
scrambling
to
bring
people
back
and
fill
those
roles.”
The
‘Layoff
Boomerang’:
Why
Firms
Are
Scrambling
to
Rehire
Talent
in
the
AI
Era
[Law.com]