"Out as Soon as They Join": The Real Reason Google and Meta Lay Off Workers Within 10 Months

Q. We are joined today by someone in a prime position to witness the secrets that working professionals of this era are most curious about: Sunguk Moon, CEO of Blind. In South Korea, it is often said that "young professionals in their 20s and 30s might skip their company intranet, but not a day goes by without checking Blind," to the point where it is no exaggeration to say nearly every salaried worker in the country is a user. We hear this is not unique to Korea, and that anyone working in Silicon Valley is likely on Blind as well.

Employees at almost every tech company our viewers would recognize are on Blind. At Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Uber, and many others, workers make extensive use of Blind, and the platform is just as well-known there as it is in Korea.

Q. There is a pervasive sense of crisis that the AI revolution could fundamentally redefine the very concept of jobs. We hear that such signs are particularly visible on the US Blind app?

Yes. Layoffs are taking place on a tremendous scale, particularly among Silicon Valley tech firms. Cutbacks are happening so frequently that people say layoffs occur once every quarter. Starting in the tech sector, this trend is spreading rapidly into finance and general white-collar positions, and layoffs in the tech industry have surged by 67% compared to the previous year.


"US Big Tech Is a 'Revolving Door'.. You're Out as Soon as You Join"
Q. Which job categories are seeing the most frequent layoffs in the US?

Software engineers, designers, marketing, finance, and legal roles are among the functions where layoffs occur frequently. Entry-level white-collar positions have declined drastically. Because entry-level work consists of lower-level tasks that are relatively easy to automate with AI, many of these roles appear to be disappearing.

Q. Those who joined five years ago are not entry-level. That trend was not visible back then, so are you saying that those entering in 2025 and 2026 are the ones being laid off? In that case, even within the same company, anxiety and treatment might differ depending on whether someone joined years earlier or not.

That is not the case. In 2024, lower-tenure employees were indeed laid off first, but starting last year, companies began laying off senior personnel in their 40s and older under the objective of removing bureaucracy and streamlining decision-making. Today, layoffs occur across all job functions regardless of tenure.

Well-known tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and Salesforce are often referred to as "revolving doors." At these companies, 67% of new hires are laid off within one year. In Meta's case, the probability of a new hire being laid off within 10 months of joining is reported to exceed 80%. These companies hire heavily but simultaneously lay off heavily, leading to a high probability of termination shortly after joining—hence the term "revolving door." As a result, a phenomenon has emerged where companies retain only the divisions with the highest ROI (return on investment) while discarding the rest.


Will the Board of Directors Be the Only 'Humans' Left at Companies?
Q. Finance departments are typically responsible for assessing ROI. But if they are also facing heavy layoffs, who on earth makes those ROI decisions?

As you move up the hierarchy, higher-level decision-makers are making those evaluations.

Q. In extreme terms, are we reaching a point where everyone except the CEO is replaceable?

Even a CEO may become unnecessary; it is possible that only the board of directors will remain essential. About two years ago, there was a shocking incident where hundreds of employees facing layoffs were gathered into an online chat room and coldly notified of their dismissal. The company faced massive public backlash for handling terminations in that manner, and I heard that the CEO who carried it out was laid off in the exact same way earlier this year.

There is widespread discussion about AGI (artificial general intelligence that equals or surpasses human capabilities) these days. Logically speaking, I believe human beings—though perhaps not immediately—will eventually become largely unnecessary at some point. Arriving at that logical conclusion is actually quite straightforward.

Where deep uncertainty sets in, however, is when considering that if things do not go entirely that far and humans must still be involved somewhere: "In what form should we be involved? For how long must we remain involved?" Thinking through these questions makes it impossible to know. Which positions will continue to need humans? Which roles will remain indispensable, and which will survive until the very end? Imagining these outcomes is difficult. I believe this is a critical dilemma plunging many into profound uncertainty.

Among people I know through acquaintances, there were individuals working in key roles at a well-known US gaming company, but in the US, those positions were entirely replaced by AI. I understood it to be a technology-encompassing function, but the role itself was automated by AI starting two years ago and stopped hiring people altogether. Among those who worked in that position, I know of about two people who are currently driving for Uber. Yet even Uber drivers are facing displacement by autonomous robotaxis like Waymo, so the future is truly unpredictable.


Where Did the Laid-Off Workers Go?
Q. Where are the laid-off workers going?

According to data gathered via Blind AI, approximately 54% of laid-off tech professionals either secure new employment or return to the companies they previously worked for.

Q. Returning to previous employers—does that mean companies lay people off and then hire them back?

Most companies always maintain open job requisitions. The exact position from which someone was dismissed will not be open, but simpler roles or lower-level positions likely are. There are cases of workers returning to their former employers this way, though the proportion is relatively small.

About 31% of laid-off workers return to their home countries or relocate to a third country due to visa challenges. US university graduates holding H-1B visas must depart the US within a specified grace period once laid off, meaning that unless they secure a new sponsor quickly, they must return home or move to a country where they hold work authorization. In 2023, the Canadian government operated an initiative granting three-year work permits to US H-1B visa holders, and some utilized that pathway to move to Canada and successfully find reemployment.


Is "Replaced by AI" an Excuse? The Real Reason for Layoffs
Q. Beyond AI executing tasks more efficiently and rendering people redundant, Blind's big data indicates that AI may also serve as a pretext.

There are certainly instances where roles are eliminated because AI directly replaces the work, but the far larger factor lies elsewhere. Workforce reductions appear to be driven much more by the need to secure capital for preemptive AI investments. Companies are facing entirely new expenditures, such as constructing AI data centers, paying immense electricity bills to run them, and purchasing AI tokens to optimize business processes.

Faced with covering these costs, the most accessible lever to pull is payroll. In some cases, companies reallocate saved labor costs directly into capital available for reinvestment through layoffs; in many other cases, they eliminate US roles and rehire personnel at substantially lower wages in offshore markets—particularly third countries like India—thereby slashing expenses and directing the remaining savings into new investments.


High-Skilled Workers Leaving the US See Their Compensation Plunge
Q. Laying off developers and hiring Indian developers remotely at lower pay to do the work?

These hubs are commonly referred to as GCCs (Global Capability Centers—core operational units established in India by multinational corporations for IT, customer support, R&D, and related functions), and the Indian offices of leading US tech firms are massive. Because India offers widespread English proficiency, competitive labor costs, and a highly skilled talent pool, companies establish local subsidiaries and hire there directly.

Q. What about South Korea or Vietnam?

Because the wage differential between the US and India is far wider than that between the US and South Korea, and because Korea has fewer professionals fluent in English for daily business communication, companies strongly prefer India. Vietnam is generally utilized for operations such as content moderation, whereas India is far more heavily leveraged for software engineering and general corporate functions.

Q. Does that mean that as jobs for Americans contract in Silicon Valley, employment opportunities for Indian workers are expanding proportionately on a global scale?

While the overarching goal of generating capital through mass layoffs is identical, India presents an unusual pattern where companies execute layoffs while simultaneously hiring large numbers of new personnel. A peculiar dynamic has developed where US Big Tech firms reduce US headcount and rehire in India, expanding recruitment in India as a result.

A significant portion of those laid off who must return home due to visa constraints are originally from India. Viewed broadly, a cycle is unfolding where individuals are laid off by US companies, return to India, and are rehired into similar roles at significantly lower compensation.

Q. So ultimately, even if workers perform the exact same job, they continue working at lower rates of pay than before?

Looking at it on an individual human level, that is correct, though it remains to be seen whether such phenomena will occur frequently within a single domestic market.

Q. We hear that Blind's user base in India is also extraordinarily large.

That is correct. We did not conduct targeted marketing to launch our service in India; rather, it grew organically because US tech company employees were using it so extensively. Almost all top US tech firms maintain Indian subsidiaries. As the scale of these Indian offices expanded, professionals based in India began joining the platform out of curiosity regarding developments at US headquarters, which brought us to where we are today.

Q. While local hiring in India is expanding, there must also be workers who once earned lucrative US salaries and now have to work in India at reduced pay. It seems the mood among Indian Blind users complexly reflects how tech workers view AI today.

While companies are currently rehiring in India for positions eliminated in the US, workers there are acutely aware that as AI advances to handle more complex tasks, even the roles filled through Indian rehiring could be placed in jeopardy. That fear is very widespread.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.