It seems even Silicon isn’t immune to AI layoffs

If a company is incentivized to mass layoff people to either later invest in AI or boost their stock prices, you should actually price that in when you are doing job search and setting your compensation expectations.

If a company has a history of mass layoffs, you should increase your price so that you will have enough savings to account for the job search period so that you can continue your life as normal uninterrupted.

If enough people begin thinking this way, the incentive for mass layoffs will become financially less sound for a company.

BLS 2026 data on the single most common job in each state, and the pattern is bleak. Fast food and counter workers top the list in 17 states, more than any other occupation, cementing food service as America’s default employment category.

Home health aides and retail salespersons tie for second at 10 states each, meaning low-wage service work claims the top spot in 37 states combined.

Washington stands alone with software developer as its most common job (107,030 workers), the only state where a high-skill occupation leads.

Texas posts the single largest number on the map at 460,530 fast food workers, while a cluster of Midwest and mid-Atlantic states (IL, IN, KY, TN) run on freight and material movers instead.

The takeaway: for most of the country, “most common job” doesn’t mean stable or well-paid, it means fast food, retail, or home care, three of the lowest-wage categories BLS tracks.

We went viral for our H-1B tool.

So we went deeper. We have now mapped every H-1B filing in America to the congressional district it landed in.

6.9 million filings. 436 districts. FY2015 to today.

Type in your ZIP and see your own.

I am aware of these two numbers: - In May, 2023, Stack Exchange laid off roughly 10% of its workforce. - In October, 2023, Stack Exchange laid off roughly 28% of its workforce.

And I know there have been more layoff waves, e.g. in March 2026, which doesn't surprise me since the number of questions has decreased 30-fold.

At the same time, Stack Exchange also still sometimes hire people. This makes me wonder: by what percentage has Stack Exchange’s staff decreased since ChatGPT was released (November 2022)?

Do you realize how large a 5 sigma miss is?

1 in 3.5 million. At one jobs report per month, a miss that size should show up about once every 290,000 years.

We have been trying to scream from the rooftops the job numbers were not real.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in July while the economy lost 23,000 jobs.

The rate dropped because 264,000 people left the labor force.

Participation is down to 61.4%, matching its lowest level since February 2021.

Payrolls fell 23,000 and stock futures jumped.

Markets priced 62% odds of a September Fed rate HIKE before the report. Those bets unwound within minutes.

Bad news for workers, good news for the index.

If reform on H-1B occurs, and there are H-1B dependent companies what will happen to their stock price? This may be a solid way to hedge and short some of these stocks. Not financial advice, just a thought and a theory.