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Indeed And Glassdoor Cut 1,300 Jobs As AI Reshapes Hiring Platforms
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
Indeed and Glassdoor will cut their workforce by 1,300 positions, and merge their business as their parent company Recruit Holdings wants to invest in AI for recruitment.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Indeed and Glassdoor are cutting 1,300 jobs amid AI-driven restructuring.
- The layoffs impact 6% of Recruit Holdings’ HR tech workforce.
- Recruit Holdings cites AI innovation as the reason behind the shift.
According to a Reuters report, job platforms Indeed and Glassdoor are laying off about 1,300 employees, roughly 6% of their HR tech workforce, as part of a strategic move toward artificial intelligence.
Reuters reports that the company made its decision public through an internal memo that shows most of the layoffs happened in the United States, affecting departments like research and development, growth, and sustainability, but spans globally.
“AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences for job seekers and employers,” said Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba, CEO of parent company Recruit Holdings, as reported by Reuters.
As part of the shift, Glassdoor’s operations will merge with Indeed. Reuter notes that Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong will leave the company on October 1. Indeed’s Chief People and Sustainability Officer LaFawn Davis will also step down on September 1, to be succeeded by Recruit’s COO Ayano Senaha.
Recruit holds about 20,000 positions in its HR tech division since its acquisition of Indeed in 2012 and Glassdoor in 2018. The company made 1,000 job cuts in 2024 and 2,200 job cuts in 2023 because it needs to adapt to an AI-transformed job market, as reported by Reuters.
This move follows similar AI-driven restructurings across the tech sector. However, this transition to AI technology comes with multiple risks, which recent events demonstrated. In one example, the McHire.com’s AI-powered hiring system at McDonald’s exposed personal data from more than 64 million job applicants , using only basic hacking.
Meanwhile, AI agents’ experiments continue to misfire. Anthropic’s retail test with its chatbot Claude resulted in fake deals , free giveaways, and imaginary transactions. The experiment, meant to test autonomous retail, ultimately lost money and revealed how easily AI systems can spiral out of control when placed in real-world operations.
Analysts are also growing skeptical of agentic AI projects, which promise autonomous decision-making. Gartner estimates over 40% of such projects could be canceled by 2027 due to high costs, unclear benefits, and misleading claims known as “agent washing.”
These incidents underline that while AI adoption may improve efficiency, it also introduces significant privacy, security, and financial risks. As AI takes over more tasks once done by humans, organizations must balance innovation with accountability and transparency.
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AI Growth Sparks Local Water Crisis In Georgia
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
As AI grows, Georgia residents like Beverly Morris face water shortages, blaming nearby data centers that consume millions of gallons to stay cool.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Meta denies its data center affected local groundwater conditions.
- Data centers can use millions of gallons of water on hot days.
- Georgia’s climate makes it attractive to water-dependent tech developers.
The BBC reports the story of Beverly Morris, a woman who retired in 2016 into a peaceful rural house in Fayette County, Georgia, before discovering that within 10 years she would need to carry water buckets for flushing her toilet. This is the result of living just 400 yards from a large data center run by Meta.
“I can’t live in my home with half of my home functioning and no water,” Morris told the BBC. “I can’t drink the water,” she added.
She blames the data center construction near her residence for her private well becoming contaminated with sediment, which now produces hazy water and unstable pipes. The independent study conducted by Meta reports that there are no adverse effects on groundwater, but Morris continues to doubt their findings. “I’m afraid to drink the water,” she said to The BBC. “Am I worried about it? Yes,” she added.
The United States sees a growing number of large data centers being constructed to support cloud storage services and AI tools such as ChatGPT. The construction of these facilities results in significant water consumption costs. On hot days, a single center can consume millions of gallons of water to cool servers.
“These are very hot processors,” said Mark Mills of the National Center for Energy Analytics, as reported by the BBC. “It takes a lot of water to cool them down,” he added.
Research into the environmental impact of AI-generated messages shows that even small digital actions carry energy costs . Sending just one AI-assisted email per week over a year can consume around 7.5 kWh, about the same as what nine homes use in an hour. While this may seem minor, experts warn that such habits contribute to a larger issue. The data centers powering AI already account for an estimated 2% of global electricity use, a number expected to grow rapidly as AI becomes more embedded in daily life.
Further research shows that tech companies often withhold exact figures of AI data centers energy use. These facilities can consume as much power as tens of thousands of homes, placing serious strain on local grids.
The state of Georgia, with its humid climate, has become a leading location for data center development. The rapid development of data centers has raised worries about water contamination and resource exhaustion. “It shouldn’t be that colour,” said George Diets, a local volunteer, after collecting a murky water sample downstream from another center under construction, as reported by The BBC.
