On Monday, Mark Cuban questioned why major office buildings in U.S. cities aren’t seeing dramatic drops in occupancy despite concerns that white-collar layoffs and workforce reshaping are being driven by AI and automation.
Cuban Questions Disconnect Between AI Job Cuts and Offices
Cuban took to X, formerly Twitter, to highlight a puzzling trend.
“If AI is going to destroy white collar jobs first, shouldn’t we already be seeing occupancy declines in office buildings? Particularly in big cities where large employers are primarily based? Or am I missing something?”
Cuban’s comments come amid a wave of layoffs at tech giants that are increasingly leaning on automation and AI tools to boost productivity and margins.
Responding to him on X, Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar David Sacks disagreed with the job-loss narrative, arguing instead that the AI boom is actually increasing office demand in places like San Francisco.
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Tech Giants Cut Jobs To Fund AI Investments
Last month, it was reported that Oracle Corp ORCL has let go of roughly 10% of its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure workforce in India, part of a larger pivot toward automation and Terraform-driven AI systems.
Analysts say the company is following Meta Platform, Inc.’s META “Year of Efficiency” playbook, which saw stock prices soar after Meta cut 21,000 jobs in 2023.
Scale AI, a startup backed by Meta’s $14.3 billion investment, also had to cut 14% of staff to focus on core operations.
Meta has also frozen hiring in its AI division after poaching talent from competitors like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL.
Microsoft Corporation MSFT in May also announced plans to eliminate 6,000 jobs globally, or about 3% of its workforce.
Economists Warn Of Structural Labor Crisis
Economist Craig Shapiro earlier warned that AI-driven job displacement is a structural challenge that interest rate cuts cannot fix. Goldman Sachs projects AI could automate 25% of the U.S. labor market by 2030, while a Harvard study estimates 47% of jobs are at risk.
Shapiro noted that 62% of white-collar workers fear AI will threaten their jobs, according to Pew data, with consumer confidence dropping to 98.2 and luxury spending sliding 3.5%.
Industries Hit Unevenly By AI
Sectors with vast digital data, like software development, customer service and finance, are facing rapid automation, according to an August World Economic Forum blog.
GitHub reports that 75% of developers now use AI assistants, while AI-driven trading accounts for 70% of U.S. equity volume.
Data-scarce industries like construction, healthcare and education face slower but deeper disruptions, with invasive surveillance technology emerging as a workaround to feed AI training models.
The World Economic Forum projects 92 million jobs will be displaced by 2030, with 170 million new ones created—but not in the same locations or skill levels.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
