Big layoffs make the news. Quiet incremental hiring doesn't.

Overall employment is limited by how many people of working age there are in the economy. When tech employment grows faster than that population, the 'non-tech' sector employment shrinks, and that's not a catastrophe either. Vice versa for 'non-tech' growing faster than tech.

The overall unemployment rate in the US has been basically flat-ish since Covid at around ~4%-ish. With some minor wobbles above and below that, but nothing to write home about. (Eg compared to the peak of 2010 at ~10%.)

Other countries have also not seen any AI impact on overall employment numbers. Apart from maybe a data centre building boom, and Taiwan firing on all cylinders to satisfy chip demand.

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Though in any case, my point was that '[doing] a ton of layoffs' isn't necessarily short-sighted.