Pipedrive, Telia, Swedbank, HubSpot, Airtable. The list of familiar companies announcing layoffs keeps growing. Thousands of people are losing their jobs, including experienced professionals who, just a few years ago, might have had multiple offers on the table.
It's tempting to see these headlines as proof that the job market is in serious trouble. But from where I sit, running a recruitment company and speaking with employers and candidates every day, the reality is more complicated.
We have more available talent than we've seen in years, yet companies are still struggling to hire.
Our inboxes are filling up with CVs, often from people who aren't applying for any particular role. I speak with highly experienced professionals who have been searching for their next opportunity for six, nine, even twelve months. Some are genuinely excellent at what they do, but competition is fierce, and finding the right opportunity takes longer than they ever expected.
Meanwhile, companies are spending months trying to fill critical positions. There are clearly people available and businesses that need them, but the two don't seem to match.
Of course, behind every layoff announcement are real people whose lives are affected. Losing a job can shake your confidence, create uncertainty for your family and leave you questioning what comes next. And even those who keep their jobs may feel anxious about the future.
From a business perspective, restructuring can be a natural and sometimes necessary decision, but on a personal level, it's an incredibly difficult time for everyone affected. Understanding the business reasons behind these decisions doesn't make them any easier for the people going through them.
Layoffs don't always mean crisis
Layoffs tend to happen in waves, and they're not always a sign of economic trouble. During periods of rapid growth, companies hire aggressively, build management layers and create structures around ambitious plans. Sometimes they overhire, and sometimes the business evolves in a completely different direction than expected.
What worked for a company of 100 people might make very little sense at 1,000. Restructuring can be a natural part of business development. It's painful for those affected, but it doesn't automatically mean a company is failing or the economy is heading towards a crisis.
Technology is another part of the equation. Companies are often careful to explain that their layoffs aren't about replacing people with AI. In many cases, that's probably true, at least partly. But I also think we're sometimes avoiding an uncomfortable truth: technology is changing how much work can be done, how quickly it can be done and how many people are needed to deliver the same results.
AI doesn't have to replace your entire job to make your current way of working obsolete.
The uncomfortable conversation about performance
There's another part of this discussion that I think deserves more attention. People get comfortable, and that's human nature. You join a company, work hard, prove yourself and eventually settle into a routine. Over time, the business changes and technology advances, but your way of working might stay exactly the same.
At some point, the value you bring may no longer match what the business needs. Sometimes it's a lack of motivation or resistance to change. Other times, people simply haven't been given the direction or support to evolve.
Companies have a responsibility here too. You can't expect people to adapt if you don't invest in their development or help them understand where the business is heading. But employees also have to take ownership of their growth. Being excellent at your job five years ago doesn't automatically make you excellent at it today.
Experience matters, but so does the willingness to question what you know and how you work.
What if the jobs themselves are changing?
Businesses are becoming more selective, expecting people to deliver results faster, work more independently and increasingly bring specialised skills. Yet they're often less willing to invest in training. And perhaps the irony is that companies themselves don't always fully understand what capabilities they'll need next, let alone how to develop them.
Take HR as an example. I'm seeing demand shift towards two very different profiles: junior, support-oriented roles handling relatively straightforward tasks that still require a human touch, or senior leaders whose responsibilities extend well beyond HR, almost into COO territory. Meanwhile, experienced HR professionals whose expertise sits somewhere in the middle can find themselves in a difficult position, despite having years of valuable experience.
This isn't necessarily about those people being less capable. The roles themselves are changing, and the market isn't always creating obvious opportunities for people whose careers were built around a different set of expectations.
The same challenge applies across functions. Companies need to rethink not only whom they're hiring, but also how roles are designed and what skills are genuinely necessary from day one.
The real problem isn't a lack of talent
What we're seeing is a growing mismatch between people's experience, companies' expectations and the skills required in a rapidly changing workplace. More available candidates don't automatically mean more suitable candidates, especially when employers themselves are still figuring out what they need.
We expect candidates to be adaptable, but companies need to become more adaptable too. That means being willing to rethink job descriptions, invest in learning and recognise potential rather than expecting every new hire to arrive with the perfect combination of skills.
Let's move the conversation on from whether AI is taking our jobs, and lets spend more time asking whether we're preparing ourselves, and our organisations, for what comes next.
Because the biggest risk might not be losing your job to technology. It might be holding on too tightly to the way you've always done it.
Reet Kaurit is the co-founder of TalentHub and one of the first recruiters at Wise. Over the past decade, she has helped hundreds of startups and scaleups hire technical specialists, leaders and executives across Europe. She regularly shares practical insights on recruitment, leadership and the future of work.
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