Pensions

In Eating The Seed Corn I wrote about AI's destruction of entry-level jobs. But Karen Weise's Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Employees as It Spends on A.I. reports on a different impact (my emphasis):

Microsoft on Monday offered buyouts to a quarter of its work force, the latest effort by the company to rein in costs as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence.
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The “time-limited, voluntary” program grew out of the company’s first ever buyouts earlier this year, she wrote. In April, Microsoft offered early retirement to 8,600 long-tenured U.S. employees, and about 30 percent accepted the packages and left over the summer. Microsoft said it heard from additional employees who would have taken the buyout if they had been eligible. That informed the company’s decision to create this new, expanded program.

Microsoft expects many fewer acceptances in this new program, but the people leaving are not entry-level, they are well-paid senior staff. If the goal is to divert cash from salaries to capex getting rid of senior staff is much more effective.

Below the fold I look into the non-obvious implications of AI's impact on well-paid employees' jobs.