You are not invited to a meeting that is currently taking place in an office with glass walls. A slide is being presented by someone. There is a percentage on it. It is a very high percentage. The number of people whose jobs are being reconsidered is a quieter, more unsettling figure that appears somewhere in the presentation’s subtext.
One of the largest consulting firms in the world, Mercer, recently gave a face to what many employees have been feeling for months. The results of its 2026 Global Talent Trends report, which polled over 1,650 HR professionals and 825 C-suite executives, were almost too clear to be true: 99% of the executives surveyed stated they anticipate at least some headcount reduction in the next two years due to AI. Not the majority. Not the majority. Almost everyone.
It’s the type of number that is discreetly stored away after being shared on LinkedIn with a fire emoji. However, this place has something worthwhile to sit with. These aren’t tech evangelists making predictions about the far future. Payroll is managed by these individuals. They’re not hedging either.
It seems that the damage will not be distributed equally. Younger workers are suffering the most from this, especially those between the ages of 22 and 27. Entry-level positions, which have traditionally been training grounds where one learns how to write a brief, construct a model, or comprehend a client’s true thought process, are disappearing at a rate that merits more consideration than it is receiving. According to a different Oliver Wyman study, the percentage of businesses actively cutting junior positions increased from 17% to 43% in just one year. A year. It is not a trend. It’s a lurch.
As part of an AI-focused reorganization, Standard Chartered announced that it would eliminate 7,000 jobs, which it internally described as a move away from “lower-value human capital.” It’s noticeable how cold the phrasing is. It’s not isolated either. The entry-level hiring pipeline, which was once viewed as a slow, deliberate institutional investment, is being quietly dismantled across industries in favor of tools that don’t require onboarding, don’t take lunch breaks, and don’t request raises.
What’s more difficult to measure, but perhaps more revealing, is how employees feel about it all. According to surveys conducted by Mercer in 2024, about two-thirds of workers claimed to be thriving at work. That percentage dropped to 44% by 2026. Nowadays, more than one in five employees say they are dissatisfied but essentially stuck, staying because they have no other choice rather than because they find their work fulfilling. That’s a big psychological change, and it’s happening quickly.
The framing here might be too depressing. In the Mercer report, some executives were open about their own doubts: only 32% of them said they thought their organizations could successfully integrate human and machine capabilities. Thus, there is a great deal of ambition but little confidence in its execution. CEOs’ stated plans and their actual discoveries differ from one another. That difference could be significant.
However, there is no doubt about the corporate direction. These companies aren’t merely automating tasks, as evidenced by the surveillance apparatus being built around all of this (49% of HR managers say behavioral and sentiment monitoring will become critical management tools within two years). The way labor is observed is being redesigned. And more than any specific job loss, that is what tends to alter a workplace’s culture in ways that people experience long before they can articulate them.
It’s difficult to ignore how remarkably aligned the people making these decisions appear to be, regardless of the exact shape of what’s coming. When 99% of people in a room agree on something, you stop questioning whether the change is genuine and instead ask how quickly it will occur.
