New York State Begins Asking Employers to Offically Identify Layoffs Caused by AI (entrepreneur.com) 31
The state of New York is "asking companies to disclose whether AI is the reason for their layoffs," reports Entrepreneur:
The move applies to New York State's existing Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) system and took effect in March, Bloomberg reported. New York is the first state in the U.S. to add the disclosure, which could help regulators understand AI's effects on the labor market.
The change takes the form of a checkbox added to a form employers fill out at least 90 days before a mass layoff or plant closure through the WARN system. Companies have to select whether "technological innovation or automation" is a reason for job cuts. If they choose that option, they are directed to a second menu where they are asked to name the specific technology responsible for layoffs, like AI or robots.
The change takes the form of a checkbox added to a form employers fill out at least 90 days before a mass layoff or plant closure through the WARN system. Companies have to select whether "technological innovation or automation" is a reason for job cuts. If they choose that option, they are directed to a second menu where they are asked to name the specific technology responsible for layoffs, like AI or robots.
Good way of getting a list of companies to avoid (Score:2)
Good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't matter what your industry is you're going to find 80% of it is owned by the same handful of billionaires and or shareholders and they are all going to be doing the same evil things.
So yeah you can quit and go elsewhere but the exact same policies and procedures are going to be at the exact same company because they're all owned by the same people.
And if you try to take your skills and start your own company you're going to find that capital is basically impossible to get because our economy is kept in a constant state of near collapse so interest rates are going to be perpetually high and no bank is going to loan you a dime.
And of course if you do somehow get something off the ground one of those mega corporations is just going to grind you in the pulp. If you're really really lucky then they will do a buyout to get some of the engineers you hired but honestly I don't even think they're bothering with that anymore. Lately they just bring in more h-1bs and run you out of business with a competing product at lower prices subsidized by their other businesses.
We spent the last 50 years indulging in moral panics instead of voting for politicians that would take care of us and this is what it got us. Honestly I don't think there's a future. We're just going to Coast into techno feudalism.
Re: (Score:1)
Doom & gloom, falling sky. Enough already.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
You might want more antitrust enforcement [justice.gov] and blocked mergers [reuters.com], but it's characteristically dishonest for you to say there have been zero of either.
Re: (Score:3)
Also typically it is Democrats at the state level even buying that time. But give it another few years and the mergers eventually go through.
This is the problem with people in general. Us working class slobs think in terms of this year or even this quarter because we're so used to living paycheck to paycheck.
The people making us live paycheck to paycheck think in terms of decades. It took them 60 year
Easy (Score:2, Interesting)
Since AI doesn't actually exist, yet, the easy answer is "no".
Re: (Score:1)
Sure. But i dunno why you quoted me to say this.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps not; but who else do you want to be in charge of keeping track of the reasons companies lay people off en masse?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
being human is not a protected category...?
So you do what most companies do (Score:2)
Ask the employees (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet the answer from the fired employee and the answer from the company might be different.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course they will. Sometimes the company might even lie to the benefit of the employee.
Back in 2016 the company I was with laid off 600 people. This wasn't driven by AI, but by two decades of excessive and unrestricted hiring that ran into reality pretty hard. Two names on the block in my area were folks with shitty attitudes, poor punctuality, and no desire to improve.
They got an unblemished, unremarkable "redundant" exit and a package. The company got a clean separation. Worked out well for both.
Compani
This is completely meaningless (Score:3)
This is the "Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification" regulation, that companies have to follow if they're planning on having a layoff.
Thing is, most companies use one of the many loopholes that exist to prevent from needing to follow this regulation. They only use it when they have to.
On top of that, mass layoffs happen because you're losing money and you need to cut 10-20% of your workforce. The reason won't be "because AI". It'll be "because we suck at business".
Useless article trading on controversy over AI. Slow news day I guess.
These companies are making money hand over fist (Score:1)
And for all you people saying I've got a 401k so I love the stock market have you been paying attention to what they're doing with cryptocurrency? Your 401k is going to be vested completely into cryptocurrency scams and dodgy failing stocks from well connected CEOs. They d
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Psst, not all of them are:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/2... [cnbc.com]
Corporations can and still do fail. Some spectacularly:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22... [cnn.com]
Fine, but,. (Score:1)
And then lay off the hateful sexist/racist/heterophobic people who did not hire them.
How will they know if it's an AI layoff? (Score:2)
I don't know, ask ChatGPT.
They're gathering data... (Score:2)
Because if income tax collections start falling off due to a high number of layoofs in the future, New York will be in fiscal trouble.
If a source of tax revenue starts to fall off, then cities and states start asking questions why.
If a lot of citizens start losing their jobs, then they become a burden to the state's unemployment trust fund. Of course, that stops becoming an issue after 26 weeks (As soon as 13 weeks in some red states)
Additionally, if a large swath of people lose their jobs, and we see unem
Reason or excuse? (Score:1)
Unfair (Score:3)
So existing companies are screwed, but new ones can emerge that will be able to use AI and compete with the existing companies (which will go bankrupt and have to lay off workers)? Btw, how come we didn't have these laws when the world was industrializing? How many workers lost their wages to machines? We had to adapt and developed taxation welfare/models eventually.
Definitions and excuses (Score:4, Insightful)
A company is doing poorly, and has to lay off dozens of people. They don't want investors to worry too much, so just check the "AI" box and make it sound like progress! I mean, who doesn't use ChatGPT these days, so every layoff can be considered an "AI" layoff.
How do they verify? (Score:2)
One generally has to dig deeper into how an org works to understand who did what and why. NY gov't won't have the time or resources to check most correctly. This idea smells almost as bad as DOGE's Move Fast And Chainsaw Things.
This is trivially easy to get around... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dancing around this is easy. "We had an internal reorg, and are cutting non-relevant employees as per guidance by our consulting companies (a WITCH firm most likely), and internal advice. If something more than that is needed, do a reorg and form new departments, then cut the new departments, saying that the project the employees are on has been cut due to financial reasons.