The 'Great Freeze:' Companies Keep Growing—Without Hiring

Big US companies are betting they can boost profits and keep sales climbing—all without hiring more people. The new corporate mantra is to do more with the same, or even fewer, employees, as businesses lean on artificial intelligence and automation to shoulder the extra work, per the Wall Street Journal. Some, including JPMorgan Chase, RTX, and Walmart, are openly telling investors and employees that they're keeping head counts flat, even as business grows.

Goldman Sachs has gone so far as to warn staff that any new hiring will be tightly controlled, and that roles ripe for automation could disappear. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky sums up the prevailing mood: "If people are getting more productive, you don't need to hire more people." Chesky says he expects Airbnb's workforce to stay about the same size, banking on AI to help existing employees do more. Other firms, like Intuit, are making managers justify every new hire, often choosing not to refill jobs when people leave. The upshot? In Intuit's example, it saw rising revenue in the last fiscal year without adding staff.

This lean approach in which companies keep current talent on to do more without hiring new workers—dubbed the "Great Freeze" recently by ZipRecruiter, per Business Insider—has its downsides. Workers report feeling stuck, with fewer opportunities to move up or try for new roles. And while layoffs aren't sweeping the economy, companies including Target, Rivian, and Charter Communications have announced recent cuts. Meta Platforms, meanwhile, just trimmed 600 jobs from its AI division, arguing that a smaller team can move faster. The AP has more companies that have been letting people go in recent months.