{"id":2431,"date":"2026-06-28T15:42:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2431"},"modified":"2026-06-28T15:42:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:42:59","slug":"aws-ceo-says-replacing-young-employees-with-ai-is-one-of-the-dumbest-ideas-and-bad-for-business-at-some-point-the-whole-thing-explodes-on-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2431","title":{"rendered":"AWS CEO says replacing young employees with AI is \u2018one of the dumbest ideas\u2019\u2014and bad for business: \u2018At some point the whole thing explodes on itself\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Last year, Garman said replacing junior software developers with AI was \u201cone of the dumbest things I\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d and it\u2019s a point he stands by. In an interview with <em>Wired<\/em>, Garman said displacing junior engineers and employees with new tech is a bad business move.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2429\">France suffers 1,000 additional deaths\u00a0in just the past week amid record heat wave\u2014and 85% involved people aged 65 and above<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Entry-level workers are usually paid the least, meaning getting rid of their positions first in favor of higher-paid senior talent is not a cost-effective strategy, he noted. Moreso, these fresh-faced young workers are likely recent college graduates with energy, excitement, and deep familiarity with AI tools. Eliminating them, in Garman\u2019s eyes, would be myopic.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cAt some point that whole thing explodes on itself,\u201d Garman said. \u201cIf you have no talent pipeline that you\u2019re building and no junior people that you\u2019re mentoring and bringing up through the company, we often find that that\u2019s where we get some of the best ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta think longer term about the health of a company,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd just saying \u2018OK great, we\u2019re never going to hire junior people anymore,\u2019 that\u2019s just a nonstarter for anyone who\u2019s trying to build a long-term company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an episode of the\u00a0<em>Platformer<\/em>\u00a0podcast\u00a0released this week, Garman said Amazon plans to hire 11,000 interns and recent graduates in 2026. The tech giant has more software developers today than two years ago, despite the advancement of AI coding tools.<\/p>\n<p>Data has so far painted a muddy picture of how AI is impacting labor more broadly. A Stanford University study published last August suggested AI is already starting to have its way with entry-level workers. The research revealed that \u201cthe AI revolution\u201d is having a \u201csignificant and disproportionate impact on entry-level workers in the U.S. labor market,\u201d particularly 22- to 25-year-old software engineers and customer service agents.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, while the unemployment rate for recent college graduates, about 5.6%, sits higher than the general unemployment rate of 4.2%, this gap emerged six months before the November 2022 release of  ChatGPT and has not widened significantly since then, leading economists like Apollo\u2019s Torsten Slok to attribute young people\u2019s job struggles to broader economic factors, not AI.<\/p>\n<h2>What are ?<\/h2>\n<p>Despite Garman\u2019s assertions that Amazon is hiring young talent, the company\u2019s own automation advancements have coincided with the company laying off thousands of employees last fall and this January. The tech giant announced last October it would slash 14,000 jobs, mostly middle management positions. Earlier last year, Amazon laid off a smaller portion of workers from divisions including AWS, its Wondery podcast division, and the consumer devices unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2427\">More than 3 million college students are raising kids. Most won\u2019t graduate<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Rather than attribute the axings to AI, Amazon instead said the layoffs were part of an effort to make the business more efficient after a period of growth, as well as resolve cultural mismatches that emerged in the workforce.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it\u2019s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,\u201d CEO Andy Jassy said at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Still, AI advancements are poised to impact Amazon\u2019s workforce. The memo outlining the fall layoffs cites the transforming technology of AI as the impetus for improving workflows with leaner teams. A June 2025 memo from the company said AI efficiency gains will \u201creduce our total corporate workforce,\u201d and a <em>New York Times<\/em> investigation published in October reported Amazon had a lofty goal to automate 75% of its work, translating to about 600,000 jobs the tech giant would not ultimately need to hire for.<\/p>\n<h2>How AI is creating a labor transformation<\/h2>\n<p>Garman isn\u2019t naive to the workplace upheaval AI could bring, but he also refuses to catastrophize the future of jobs as the use of the technology proliferates. On the <em>Platformer<\/em> podcast, Garman argued AI will reshape work, but not eliminate the need for it altogether. The transformation will necessitate new jobs, and while some jobs may change, work is necessary to keep an economy in motion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you believe that half of jobs get wiped out, the whole economy collapses on itself,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything goes away. You\u2019re not going to have AI, and then you have to go back to those other jobs at some point. The math doesn\u2019t work out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the future of tech jobs amid the AI boom could mirror the introduction of Microsoft Excel, which eliminated the need for workers making calculations manually, but encouraged others to adapt and learn the new tool. <\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI do think that half of white-collar jobs may change, but wipe out and change are different,\u201d Garman said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2425\">Anthropic\u2019s Alibaba fight raises a trillion-dollar question for IPO: How defensible is a frontier AI moat against China with Washington\u2019s toolbox?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Dec. 16, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>More on AI and entry-level workers:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>College students are booing commencement speakers celebrating AI, but the wave of hate hasn\u2019t stopped them from using it to cheat on their exams<\/li>\n<li>Gen Z graduates are blaming AI for their unemployment woes when they should be looking somewhere else<\/li>\n<li>Gen Z is over-relying on AI at work\u2014and it could cost them their careers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon laid off 14,000 employees this fall, but CEO Andy Jassy denied the reductions were related to AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amazon"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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