GM's Layoffs: A Push for AI Innovators

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0:42With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. GM just laid off hundreds of IT workers and they're going to be rehiring other IT workers with more AI skills. So today we're going to talk about just more of this big change that's happening specifically in IT and tech where AI skills are becoming necessary if you want to hold on to your job.

1:25And so we'll talk about some of the other implications as well. GM, of course, is based in Michigan, my home state. So a lot of these jobs are local to my state, which is significant as well. And so we're going to get into all that before we do. I wanted to mention our school community. If you have not joined it yet, you need to check it out. Each week we release bonus content over there. We talk about specific tools and ways you can actually make money using AI and grow your business. We have our big one lately has been Vibe Coding. This year is the year of Vibe Coding. We've been building lots of things over there and kind of are learning new stuff about it all the time.

2:07And so, yeah, we'd love to have you be a part of it. It's$19 a month. And if you lock the price in today, it will never be raised on you. So we'd love to have you be a part of our almost 300 member community. But, yeah, let's talk about GM and this IT worker replacement. Jaden, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think this is interesting. And I will also say I have a close family member that used to work at GM in the IT department. So I feel like this is a, we both have some interesting ties to the story. One thing that I will say, as we've also been seeing a ton of these other stories, it feels like almost every single day we see AI related layoffs.

2:44And I've mentioned this before, but my CFO, the first company I ever worked at said, never waste a good crisis. When there is a reason to do layoffs or to make cuts and to blame it on something, that's usually what companies will do. So in this case, I do know that the person I knew, I know that worked at GM in their IT department, they were doing layoffs like two years ago. And there was actually a bunch of rounds of layoffs that she made it through before that one ended up happening. I'll also say GM has really awesome severance packages. So for these 600 people that got laid off, they'll usually get, you know, multiple months of severance as well.

3:20This kind of standard with corporate jobs, I guess. It's not maybe not much of a not much of a condolence to most people. But this is pretty big because this is more than 10 % of their IT department, about 600 employees. And this one is a little bit different because they're not saying we're just making job cuts to make job cuts. They're saying we're cutting 600 employees and we're going to rehire ones that have an AI focused background. They're good at AI. Now, what does AI focused background mean? because I mean, ChatGPT has only been on the scene for the last few years. So what I'm getting from this though, is maybe this is a way for them to clean house and to try to upskill and stuff.

4:00But what I'm getting from this is if you're inside of an organization right now, or you're working on a business right now, you absolutely like now is the time that you absolutely have to be skilling yourself up with AI. It's not like a Oh, you know, like if my director or someone tells me I have to We have an initiative and they tell me I have to work with the tool. Like I'll go figure it out. People have to start figuring this stuff out now. They have to start using this stuff now. And I think one opportunity, because literally we are seeing this story play out almost every single day. We've had Amazon.

4:30We've had Coinbase. We've had Cloudflare. Now GM, it is every company, almost every day, big layoff round announced due to quote unquote AI, or because we're going to focus on AI or because we're going to make AI investments or in this case, because they're going to hire people that have more AI native skills. The bottom line on all of this though is number one, people need to be upskilling themselves with AI. And I think a lot of people know that. Number two, as far as an opportunity goes, teaching people how to upskill themselves inside of your niche or industry with AI, I think is a massive business right now.

5:01Absolutely incredible. And I know a lot of people that do, like a lot of friends I have on LinkedIn that are like coaches to help people in different areas. I think we're gonna start seeing a lot more that are specifically coaching people on how to upskill themselves with AI in a specific industry or vertical, not just like generally how to use chat GPT. It's too generic. It's too general. But it's like if you're in IT, here's the seven ways that you should be using XYZ to do XYZ. I think education on YouTube, education on LinkedIn, courses, people are going to make a lot of money. And it's obviously very needed because people's jobs are very directly tied to it.

5:35Yeah, and I think specifically, I think development in IT is a career that's definitely not going away. is just changing how it's happening and what tools are being used. You know, for example, if now moving forward, if soon an IT AI bot will be able to take in support tickets and solve all the lower level ones, you know, that is a great example of maybe how you could replace someone at the low end. But if you are, again, like you said, someone who knows how to use some of these AI tools, implement them, you know, audit them, stuff like that, you are going to keep your job and it's going to be a good thing.

6:16Same with development. You know, a lot of, I think, especially with a company like GM moving forward, there's actually going to be more demand for internal apps and things for the other GM employees. So there's actually going to be more things created. It's just going to be faster paced because of AI coding and things like that. So like I said, I think I don't think these careers are going anywhere. It's just changing, which is back to your point of you need to stay educated on a lot of these tools and know how to use them. A hundred percent. And like I said, so much potential for people that are trying to upskill themselves.

6:54I think General Motors here, like if you read into their story a little bit, you'll see that in August of 2024, they cut about a thousand software workers. And so in the last 18 months, we've seen a lot of different layoffs there. So I do think a part of this kind of layoff thing is they're consolidating some departments. I mean, even some of their what you would consider could be or should have been blockbuster products like Cruise, the self-driving car company that they acquired, they just literally shut down. And is it a bad idea? No. Like Tesla is absolutely crushing it. Waymo from Google is absolutely crushing it with self-driving.

7:26So I think there was definitely a business there. But it felt like General Motors is probably consolidating some of their focus and is going to just use third-party stuff. And so their organization is shifting around a lot. I wouldn't get too caught up in this being like, oh, AI is the reason why every single layoff is happening. And I think everyone will blame AI for everything, which is why AI gets a bit of a bad wreck, but it's not the reason. But like I mentioned, it is a great reason to talk to people about upskilling themselves in their organization. And I mean, that's something that you can genuinely do to help people in your industry.

7:59If you work in textiles or manufacturing or steel or like there's so many random industries and there's different ways that I have no idea how someone in manufacturing is using AI in their day-to-day workflow. But if you work in that industry and you know you do, and I think it's an amazing time for people with industry-specific knowledge to create educational content and courses to help people in that industry to upskill themselves and to figure out how to use a lot of these tools. So I think it's a massive opportunity to make a lot of money. And this General Motors story kind of is pretty clearly outlining that for me.

8:33Yeah. I have one more question. One more thought is like, so let's say someone like this has, who's listening to this podcast, they have a IT job or they're a developer. Is this the time for them to start up that side hustle outside of work to try to get some consulting gigs and things like that? Because my other concern is long-term, let's say there's someone who does have some AI skills. What if they still get lose their job or what if they go down to part time? You know, and everyone hates talking about this because of course you don't want to have a side hustle, but, uh, or I should say, sorry, not everyone wants to have a side hustle, but sometimes it's necessary to make ends meet or get ahead.

9:19Do you think, uh, someone listening to this podcast should maybe consider starting a side hustle if they're in these, in this, uh, field. If you don't already have one, I think now more than ever is the time to do it. It's also now more possible than ever with tools like Cloud Cowork that you literally can tell your computer to do things and it will just run off and accomplish stuff for you. You know, you could say, go build me this website or the software or this tool or go email these people or contact this or do this research for me. It can do so much of it for you. I think 100 % everyone now should be thinking about how to diversify their income streams a little bit.

9:55Things are shaking up in AI. jobs are a little bit shakier. And so I think it's, this is probably the time to start, start those side hustles for sure. Yeah. Well, and I'm going to plug our community again. If you're not part of that, you want to check it out. Cause we talk about some of these new tools each week and how we're implementing them in our businesses. And so if this piques your interest at all, we'd love to have you be a part of it. So come check it out. You could even just join for a month. And then if you don't like it, you can unjoin, but we'd love to have you be a part of it. And again, leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening to our podcast.

10:29Those help us out a lot and reach more people. But thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.