I have been laid off a few times, and NEVER was it because of AI or anything like that.
Without exception, the lay-offs were solely for the reason that there were no funds to meet the payroll.
It all gets down to money!
At one job, when the owner explained that there had to be the layoff because of no funds, I asked how he would finish the project. He stated that there was no way, so he was in trouble. I asked if he would be OK if he could sell the project complete, would he be OK, and he said yes, if only he could.
So I volunteered to work and finish the project and wait for pay until it was paid for.
We completed the project and I got paid and he made money on it. He was an honest person indeed.

I don't know that I can say I've ever been laid off -- it depends on the fine print. At one job I was offered a position knowing that it was a three-year closed-end position with the possibility that it could end sooner. I was replacing a person that was moving up to a higher position for a three-year appointment and it was stipulated up front that if they returned early or if they retired (or otherwise left employment) that my position would end. After two years, they decided that they couldn't deal with the politics at the higher position and so returned and, hence, by position went away. Was that a layoff? Sort of.

Prior to that, the company I worked for was bought by another company. We had just taken a contract with a large company and the new owners wanted us to dump it (we hadn't actually accepted payment for anything). I offered to take over the contract in exchange for letting them keep a 10% finder's fee. They agreed and it was a very lucrative deal for me. After about a year and a half, the owners were in dire straights (they needed another infusion of venture capital funding right as the .com bubble burst). So I offered to go on unpaid leave and to be available on an on-call basis provided they continued to pay my health insurance. They agreed. So I spend about eight months living off of what I had made on the other contract and using the bulk of it to get my Instrument Rating on my pilot's certificate. That was probably the best time of my life, or right up there (I gotta admit, watching my daughter perform in the Sydney Opera House is a serious contender). They called me in a few times (and I got paid my normal hourly rate when they did). They still went bankrupt and took us with them, but my boss (the prior owner of our original company) approached the court and offered to take responsibility for everything owed to the Colorado employees or by the Colorado office (i.e., the old company) in exchange for the Colorado assets (which were worth less than the liabilities). The court agree and he took out a loan against his house to honor those debts. He restarted the company and only laid off one employee, though a couple others left hoping to find something more stable. Since we only had a single contract to start with (we usually had about six to ten at any one time), there wasn't enough work for everyone and most of the other folks had families to support, where I was single and completely debt-free, so I again offered to not work and be available in exchange for health insurance. So I did a bunch more flying, finished my PhD, and worked contracts as a senior research scientist at the Air Force Academy. After about a year, I returned more-or-less full time since we had enough business and we were profitable after the second year. It took several more years before the president was repaid in full. To celebrate being in the black, the company took everyone (and their families) on a two-week vacation to the Virgin Islands, paying for airfare, lodging in a nice villa, most of the meals, a 27' sailboat (one of our employees had lived on a smaller boat down there for a couple years, so he was our captain and guide). We had taken care of the company in its time of need, so he made sure that the company showed its appreciation. What was even more impressive was that about a dozen people lived in close proximity for two-weeks and we were all still good friends when we got back!

After I formally left there to go to the Air Force Academy, I continued to work as a contractor from time to time, sometimes for a few hours here and there and sometimes full-time for several months, for about a decade.

From a financial standpoint, being a consultant/contractor is definitely the way to go! It has it's downsides, though. For me, I'm not good about beating the bushes to find jobs and opportunities; all of the ones I worked were things that more-or-less fell in my lap. So it's extreme highs and lows in terms of cash flow.

 

Even better is to quit and sell yourself back as a consultant.

I trippled my "salary" that way.

https://youtube.com/shorts/kqLz53z8Inc

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

Rowe warns of massive workforce shakeup, says Sanders is right: ‘Revolution unlike anything' we’ve seen coming

​

Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, joined FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on 'Varney & Co.' to discuss how rapid technological change is colliding with a long-standing shortage of skilled labor, creating what he sees as a turning point for the economy.

 

I have worked for startups and worked for stable established companies. Both kinds can be good to work for and adequately rewarding. AND NOT ONE BIT BORING!!
Certainly a steady paycheck is more comfortable, but the real secret to financial comfort is to always need less than you get, or already have, and to be able to enjoy that.
I do recall at one place that several other employees were determined to spend thier incomes as fast as possible before inflation reduced the value of it very much. My choice was to invest in values that were increasing faster than inflation.

 

Why am I not surprised?

Here are the college majors that new grads regret the most, according to a recent survey


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Liberal arts majors were most likely to regret the area they chose to focus their studies, with many wishing they had pursued a scientific or quantitative field, according to the job site.

 

Why am I not surprised?

Here are the college majors that new grads regret the most, according to a recent survey
View attachment 366298
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I have always wondered about what sort of occupation a liberal arts degree would prepare somebody for. After a bit of research it seems that it is an excellent preparation for stocking the shelves in a larger grocery chain store. I had not realized that previously.

 

Why am I not surprised?

Here are the college majors that new grads regret the most, according to a recent survey
View attachment 366298
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No surprise at all.

What's always had my head shaking is that the value of a college degree is usually only considered in the collective that equates a degree in post-modernist French literature with a degree in electrical engineering. The resulting conclusions, such as how much more a college graduate makes over their life compared to a high-school graduate, and therefore meaningless as they apply to almost nobody. The same for most scholarship, grant, and loan programs. The result is that we enable students getting low-value (and I mean that only in the economic sense) degrees to pay outrageous tuition only to end up making near-minimum wage saddled with huge student loan debt that never gets paid off that the people that made better choices (including those that couldn't afford college at all) have to cover.

 

And yet, I believe that art is very important to human well-being ... in fact, without art the human experience itself would be meaningless, I think. One could have all the doctors, and high quality transportation, communications and housing. But those are there so that we may enjoy life more thoroughly ... mainly through the experience of good music, good literature, good films, good museums, etc ... Arts have a place, it's the economic model sustaining them that is flawed, IMHO.

 

And yet, I believe that art is very important to human well-being ... in fact, without art the human experience itself would be meaningless, I think. Once could have all the doctors, and high quality transportation, communications and housing. But those are there so that we may enjoy life more thoroughly ... mainly through the experience of good music, good literature, good films, good museums, etc ... Arts have a place, it's the economic model sustaining them that is flawed, IMHO.

Art definitely has a place. So why should we be doing things that saddle people that want to pursue artistic paths with levels of debt that they can't justify or bear? As you say, the economic model sustaining them is flawed. But historically it hasn't been.

 

The very greatest benefit of my engineering degree was opening the doors to be able to get job interviews. And, of course, understanding a bit about electricity and it's control and applications. What IS STILL valuable is the grasp of KINEMATICS, that Iwas first exposed to in PHYSICS classes, and then in a college level DYNAMICS course, or two. Certainly "circuit theory" is a valuable concept to understand, and with the helpof physics insights it can be applied.
So the reality is that quite a lot seems to actually be required to understand "how things work" in detail.

 

The very greatest benefit of my engineering degree was opening the doors to be able to get job interviews. And, of course, understanding a bit about electricity and it's control and applications. What IS STILL valuable is the grasp of KINEMATICS, that Iwas first exposed to in PHYSICS classes, and then in a college level DYNAMICS course, or two. Certainly "circuit theory" is a valuable concept to understand, and with the helpof physics insights it can be applied.
So the reality is that quite a lot seems to actually be required to understand "how things work" in detail.

I was very fortunate in my college experience. My original intent had been to get an Electrical Engineering degree. But it turned out the school I was going to did not have such a degree. They had an Engineering Degree with an emphasis in either Civil, Electrical, or Mechanical. That degree required a strong foundation in the other two in addition to an emphasis in one. The emphasized one came fairly close to being a full-up major, but was required by the state to not be all the way (they didn't want the school competing with the other state universities that offered those majors). But, instead of that, I opted to get an Engineering Physics degree with a minor in Electronic Instrumentation. This still required me to take the core civil and mechanical courses from the Engineering department (virtually every major on campus did), as well as other core courses like Map Reading, Soils and Concrete, Military History, and Geology (with a field lab). Since I had an Air Force scholarship for Electrical Engineering, I had to petition the Air Force to accept that option (they already had a blanket acceptance for the Engineering major with Electrical emphasis). They agreed quickly, saying that the curriculum I mapped out was actually stronger in EE than the already approved Engineering program. The result, partially by intent on my part, but mostly by coincidence, ended up being a very broad-based background across multiple fields and I have not regretted it one bit. I think I can honestly say that the only courses I took that I wish I could have avoided were the Economics course and the Technical Writing course. But, in both cases, it wasn't because the course couldn't have been valuable, but rather because the instructors did, in my opinion, a poor job in their particular offering. I took two economics courses, plus an accounting course, at a community college while I was on active duty a couple years later and found them both extremely worthwhile. I never took another technical writing course, but my high school English classes had done a pretty good job. I took every single electrical course that the school offered, except for Power and Electromagnetic Machines (and I would LOVE to have taken those, too, but could never fit them in).

 

College graduate who paid 6-figure fortune for his degree can't find a job

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Khaled Sharif, 21, earned a degree in digital media tech from Kingston University just outside London, England. He began applying for relevant roles after he graduated in 2025, news agency SWNS reported.

But despite submitting 500 applications, he said he’s had less than 20 job interviews and is yet to land a job — despite expanding his search into sales and other sectors that he "didn’t want to work in."

 

College graduate who paid 6-figure fortune for his degree can't find a job
View attachment 366367​

Back in the day, we had a career planning and placement office where you could sign up and present for interviews.

I had a about 10 interviews and an few offers before I chose my first job.

Do the universities do this anymore?

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/kqLz53z8Inc

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

When you got them by their ball$, their hearts and minds will follow.

 

Some people interview much better than others. And some graduates are vastly more qualified than others.

 

College students wary of the job market are changing course in search of 'AI-proof' majors​

“You don’t just want to be able to code. You want to be able to have a conversation, form relationships and be able to think critically, because at the end of the day, that’s the thing that AI can’t replace,”

 

College students wary of the job market are changing course in search of 'AI-proof' majors
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“You don’t just want to be able to code. You want to be able to have a conversation, form relationships and be able to think critically, because at the end of the day, that’s the thing that AI can’t replace,”

If AI can't replace having a conversation or form relationships, then why are we constantly being flooded with stories about how so many people are forming emotional relationships with AI systems?

 

College students wary of the job market are changing course in search of 'AI-proof' majors​

She is considering switching to studio art, which is her minor.

“I’m at a point where I’m thinking if I can’t get a job being a data scientist, I might as well pursue art,” she said. “Because if I’m going to be unemployed, I might as well do something I love.”

Love won't pay the bills. My older daughter loves art, studied art but she's in commercial printing as a professional screen printer. She knows art and the machines for making it.


https://seizurepalace.com/

 

She is very talented, Spook ... congrats!

 

Love won't pay the bills.

No, but pursuing something you love increases the likelihood that you will put in the time and effort to become good enough to find a way to make it pay the bills.

The opposite is also true. Pursuing something you don't love (or actively loath) just because someone's convinced you that it will pay the bills is a good way to never become good enough to make that happen. Even if you do, will it lead to a satisfying life?

People need to make realistic evaluations of what they want for their lives and what they can do to make it happen. For some people, it's pursuing outrageous dreams that will almost certainly never come to pass -- but might -- confident that, at the end of the day, make it or not, their fulfillment will come from having made the attempt (think most people that pursue being an astronaut or an Olympian). For others, it's taking a safe route to secure a modest living at a routine job while finding joy in what they do outside of work.