Indeed Job Site Layoffs: What Next?

If you’re someone who works in the recruiting and staffing industry, then you have certainly heard about Indeed laying off a huge number of employees.

This made the news because of two things:

Indeed is a job site–so it’s Ironic that they are letting go of so many of their own emoployees.

The sheer number of people being effected by the lay off. Some numbers have 1000+ people as the estimate.

The questions are many:

• Why did Indeed need to lay off so many employees? Is their business failing?
• What prompted this? A.I. replacing human workers? Outsourcing work?
• Is Indeed still a good place to look for jobs online or are other sites taking the place?

We can spend a few minutes reviewing all of these questions, and if you want to learn more about the Indeed layoffs, then you can find more info in these news articles: Indeed Layoffs and Lawsuit?, Indeed worldwide layoffs.

It’s unfortunate whenever a company lays off a large part of their workforce, and this makes the news in part because Indeed was known to be the place people searched for jobs. Some commentaros online noticed the ironry in that.

Is A.I. Causing a Problem With Company Layoffs?

One of the first things that people ask when there are company wide layoffs, is if it is a case of AI causing the problem.

Many companies have boasted about how AI will be cost cutting advances…however what is not often spoken about is how those cuts affect the work place. In many instances, AI is replacing human workers.

This recent article in CNN describes the shrinking workforce that will come about because of A.I.

When you look at other industries, such as the publishing industry where there have been scandals involving AI written articles, then the wriring is clear and on the wall.

Many companies are using AI (be it a program to interact with customers via a Chat Bot, or a well designed system that curates data sets for a financal office).

Who is to say how much Indeed is invovled in AI technology or outsourcing roles to overseas help centers.

There was a news article that did cover some of the tech innovations that Indeed was using –and this article actually spoke about AI automation and Indeed.

If you look online, including job agreator sites like Indeed, you’ll see that companies are posting job postings for people to “edit” AI related content, work on AI support teams (managing AI chat bots) and many other human related roles that work with AI.

This doesn’t mean that AI has caused the layoffs, but it is a concerning question and one that many in the HR world have been concerned with for many years. Here is a list according a popular think tank of the types of jobs that AI will be replacing.

Is Outsourcing A Problem With American Tech Firms?

Anyone who is familiar with labor (and the news surrounding labor in the USA) understands the issues of outsourcing.

The tactic of replacing USA workers with overseas workers who will work for less is an issue that both the Right and the Left speak about–it’s been covered in magazines such as Mother Jones, the WSJ, The Economist, and American Prospect.

While it was originally only a problem with manfacutiring and labor related jobs, tech outsourcing has become a major issue in recent years. A recent article in CNBC even comments on how most large tech companies have been outsourcing their work to India for years…though India is looking to move beyond that stimatized work.

Is Indeed Still The Go To Place For Job Hunting?

A big question in the current job market is if Indeed is still even revelant? With the rise of LinkedIn, ZipRecrutier and companies turning more to recruiting services, is Indeed even a revelant place to look for jobs?

Well, that depends upon the kind of work you’re seeking. For Medical work (Nursing and Medical Assistants), Non-Profit work (welfare case managers and social workers) and labor work, traditional job posting sites such as Indeed and Craigslist are still dominant.

So, while nurses and social service workers (including housing case managers and hospital orderlies) look to find their work online by applying to job postings, people in the professioanl realm are turning to more sophisticated means of work–namely networking.

The rise of exectutive search firms, prestige staffing firms, and sites like LinkedIn, have made the recruitment and hiring process for corporate work much different than it was a few years ago.

The truth is that medical personel such as nurses and other labor roles might be well paid compared to corporate work (nurses in many cities were flauting paychecks of 200k during the pandemic) corporate roles are still in high demand for people seeking a more professional atmosphere.

Another issue with finding work with online job sites like Craiglsit or Indeed, is that there is so much competition. When a company posts a job online, anyone can send in a resume. That means that there is simply a huge number of applications for every job–and frankly it can be too much for the average person (think of your average HR employee) to ever review and go through.

It’s not just an issue of outsourcing and overcrowding in the marketplace, but also a result of the job market.

In many sectors–such as publicaly funded work like Social Work and Medical work–there are huge incentives for people to jump from job to job. In cities such as NYC, for instance, security guards and social service workers are being hired at a record pace to work with migrants. Hourly rates have skyrocketed, which leads to a job seekers marketplace.