The Underdog Files

Walmart Is Spending $6 Billion on Robots From a Company It Partly Owns. The Jobs Line Is Blank.

On October 29, Walmart said it will spend about $6 billion over several years to install Symbotic’s warehouse automation in 25 of its U.S. regional distribution centers. Symbotic is not an ordinary vendor: Walmart is its largest shareholder and, by a wide margin, its largest customer. The announcement was framed as a supply-chain upgrade. The reporting we reviewed does not say what it means for the people who work in those buildings.

Laid Off for AI, Asked Back by HR: The Boomerang Comes With Terms

Companies that laid off workers and blamed artificial intelligence are now calling some of them back. A survey from the talent firm SHL, fielded in June and July, found that about one in five U.S. workers laid off or replaced by AI had since been asked to return to

A white-iced cake shaped like a bank tower, cut open to reveal empty office desks inside

Barclays Cuts 5,000 Jobs and Calls AI the Icing

Barclays said Thursday it will cut about 5,000 jobs, roughly 5% of its global workforce, by the end of the year. About 1,000 are already gone. The bank reported a third-quarter pre-tax profit of £2.3 billion, up 12%. And when asked about artificial intelligence, its

A dim open-plan office at dusk where a worker at a desk is half dissolving into circuit lines, storm clouds over the skyline outside

Goldman Says AI Could Displace One in 11 Workers. The Layoffs Are Waiting for a Recession.

Goldman Sachs published a note on Thursday saying that up to 9% of workers in developed economies could be displaced by AI, roughly one in eleven when slower hiring is counted. The number is not the news. The timing is: the bank says the damage is likely to wait for

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