Layoffs, Logs, Lowballs: Work’s New Math

Low unemployment can still hide a labour crisis. This week: underemployment in plain sight, AI reshaping work without shrinking headcount (until it does), surveillance and “proof-of-work” culture, and the slow slide from careers to gigs. Plus The Cut List.

By EBN 11 min read
An empty open-plan office with rows of desks and chairs under bright ceiling lights, suggesting unused workspace after job cuts or reduced headcount.
The modern workplace, post-restructure: plenty of desks, fewer people, and a KPI somewhere insisting this is “efficiency.”

If you’ve been told the job market is “fine” because unemployment is low, congratulations: you’ve met the modern workplace’s favourite magic trick.

The trick works like this. People have jobs, so the headline looks healthy. Meanwhile the quality of those jobs, the hours, the pay growth, the stability, the pathways, are quietly getting shaved. Add AI investment on one side and restructures on the other, and you get a new workplace maths problem: more measurement, more output, less slack.

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