AI Is Guiding Layoffs for Most HR Teams, and Choosing Who Gets Fired for Some: Survey

Many human resources professionals are using artificial intelligence tools to guide layoff decisions, with 20% relying on them to determine which employees are fired, a new survey revealed.

After polling 1,342 HR managers, ResumeBuilder.com found that 60% used an AI tool, such as ChatGPT, to help guide them through layoffs, and 66% relied on it throughout the layoff process. Most alarming, one in five HR managers let AI decide who gets laid off without any human oversight.

The survey also found that 78% of managers used an AI chatbot to help decide on employee raises, 77% consulted it for promotions, and nearly half had been asked to assess whether AI could replace their direct reports.

These findings have raised serious ethical concerns, according to People Matters, as decisions that impact people's careers and livelihoods have traditionally required human judgment. Now, they're increasingly being outsourced to emotionless algorithms that lack understanding of personal context or consequences, the HR publication warned.

Compounding the issue is what AI researchers call the "LLM sycophancy problem," which is the tendency of large language models to mirror and reinforce the user's existing beliefs. In the context of HR, People Matters reported that could mean biased or unbalanced decisions that simply validate a manager's preconceived views without accountability.

Soribel Feliz, an AI governance and regulatory compliance leader at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a LinkedIn post shared Tuesday that, despite AI becoming "a fixture in people management," governance lacks behind.

"Most managers lack formal training on ethical AI use in HR," Feliz continued. "This shift not only affects employees but raises the question: could the managers themselves be the next layer to get automated?"