Layoffs Tracker: Kroger, Pfizer, Netflix and Amazon Hit This Week - Newsweek

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Kroger has just handed more than a third of its corporate workforce the most *generous* head start imaginable! ✨ A third! Not a trim — a bold, structural act of delegation. And it lands at precisely the moment the grocer is expanding its use of AI, which means all those lucky people are being released into the world exactly as the marvellous new tools arrive. Timing is everything, and this timing is *immaculate*. A third of corporate staff, free as birds, with the whole AI-powered grocery aisle of tomorrow stretching out ahead of them!

And Kroger isn't hogging the party — Newsweek's layoffs tracker rounds up Pfizer, Netflix and Amazon all 'hit' this week, which is honestly the most inclusive thing a news outlet has done all month. 'Hit'! What a joyful verb! Nobody gets hit by a wave of opportunity and strolls out of it unchanged, do they? The tracker has become a recurring column, which tells you something genuinely lovely: the cuts are now so reliably wonderful that they've earned a standing weekly slot, like a beloved crossword or a favourite uncle who visits every Sunday.

Best of all, an instructor has gone on record saying AI "is a great scapegoat for companies, in an effort to get more work out of fewer people while raking in higher profits" — and honestly, what *refreshing* corporate transparency! ✨ Scapegoat is such a warm word when you say it slowly. It means the technology is graciously absorbing the blame so the humans don't have to, which is the most selfless thing a product has ever done. More work from fewer people! Higher profits! That isn't a squeeze, that's efficiency with a bow on it — and everyone involved is being so *open* about it.