I used to believe it was about performance. Now I’m not so sure. Some people who barely worked got cut, sure, but I’ve also watched top performers get pushed out. It feels random. Or worse.
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@1n78 ^ "AI disguised layoffs." Fixed that for you.
The framing of “AI layoffs” misses a deeper issue. If AI were truly the most efficient option, why would companies invest time and resources into hiring and training offshore teams in the first place? Building a workforce in India (or anywhere else) requires onboarding, cultural alignment, and operational integration. All of which take significant effort. That suggests the company isn’t simply choosing “AI over humans,” but rather restructuring in a way that disguises traditional layoffs as technological progress.
In reality, these moves often look less like innovation driven efficiency and more like cost arbitrage. The narrative of “AI replacing jobs” can serve as a convenient cover, but the underlying strategy is still about shifting human labor to cheaper markets before automation fully takes hold. So instead of being a distinct new category of layoffs, many of these so-called “AI layoffs” are better understood as disguised workforce transitions.
And now, Copilot is moving towards a tokenized pricing model in June. The cost of deploying AI is going to rise, which means companies will face mounting pressure to justify these expenses by cutting back on their existing US workforce under the banner of “efficiency.”
There might be conflation of terms here. If there is a BBI team/team-member in place, it's a like for like functional replacement. To "you" it's a layoff, but it's a functional transitional operationally.
For classic layoffs, which are headcount draw downs to meet a financial target, there are a number of factors which should include performance and pay among many others- as they are driven by financial needs.
AI layoffs are relatively new- and involve replacing humans with "nobody at all" due to efficiencies or automations AI affords. So it's a draw-down but yet not one due to dire financial needs (rather perceived competitive ones). This category will accelerate and is not limited to Blackbaud.
Its all about the Benjamins. My team brought on a couple new folks with limited experience, trained them up to 50% speed. Then let the 2 senior $$$ folks go. If we dont have another breach before we go out of business it will be a miracle.
Cutting headcount is so shortsighted. Sure it can raise our balance because labor is so expensive but what happens next? You deliver worst products and impaired services. Your income drops. What next? Fire more people?
Salary and benefits packages would be the most likely driver. They could be using ai black box that has been rumored in the past. A lot of companies use that method and it su-ks because it lacks transparency and does not necessarily account for performance metrics. If they use that method they could just decide the total overhead they want to cut then use the ai to randomly cut head count until the desired saving is met. Often times in this method there is no real human override or input to say wait we need that person. For example the Valentines day layoff of several years ago saw many high performers with tenure sacked. A long tenured middle to upper manager could be great at their job and have teams that like them and never have a bad review and be great at their job, but they also have higher salary and benefits packages that include things like ltip. So many of those folks were cut. Many times folks are cut that then get asked back when companies realize they were the only employee versed on a specific item. This has happened. Outside that generally in a blind ai black box the only ones overridden are lawsuit candidates like say a protected class because of disability etc. because that could cost more than keeping those people in the long term.
If you have not heard it yet. Polish the resume and be on the lookout for you. The C suite cares about shareholder value because they answer to wall street and investors. They do not care about you and your family. This is a business with one purpose, to make money. As the stock continues to underperform and renewals drop they will have to use every cost cutting tool they have and the easiest one is to layoff head count.
If your job is easy to offshore to India, then you are much more likely to be on the list to be let go. Domestic long-term employees are way more expensive.
I've only been here through like 4 layoffs, it seems that the product you support/work under makes the most difference (EverFi, CRM, RE, FE...) from there I'm not sure, must be mainly salary, so even having many YoE you are not safe.