Indeed and Glassdoor Slash 1,300 Jobs in AI-Driven Shake-Up

For many employees at Indeed and Glassdoor, Friday’s email felt surreal. Recruit Holdings  the Tokyo-based parent of both job-search platforms quietly announced it will axe roughly 1,300 positions across the two sites. That’s about 6% of its HR tech workforce, most of them U.S.-based engineers and HR staff. The reason? A bold push into artificial intelligence.

The company says it must “adapt” to an AI-driven world by streamlining its products. In practice, that means merging Glassdoor’s operations into Indeed and cutting overlapping roles in research & development, growth, and even human-resources and sustainability teams. In other words, the sites famous for finding jobs are now writing their own pink slips.

AI Focus Sparks Mass Layoffs

Recruit CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba put it bluntly: “AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences for job seekers and employers,” he wrote in a memo. Indeed and Glassdoor will now try to use those AI tools  rather than people  to match candidates with jobs. An internal note even brags that AI already helps someone find a new job every 2.2 seconds, underscoring the argument to “simplify hiring” with machine power.

The reshuffle is already underway. As part of the cutbacks, Glassdoor’s longtime CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong will depart on Oct. 1, and Indeed’s head of people and sustainability, LaFawn Davis, leaves in September.

Recruit says the consolidation was planned Glassdoor will be folded into the larger Indeed team, but the sudden job notices stunned staff. A detailed Reuters memo explains the cuts hit many functions and “span all…countries” where the sites operate. In fact, Glassdoor and Indeed together have about 20,000 employees in their global recruiting unit, so slashing 1,300 jobs is a major trim. Some affected teams learned of their fate by late Thursday, when the company began sending layoff notices.

This move follows a string of cost-cutting at Recruit’s brands. Indeed alone trimmed roughly 2,200 positions in 2023 (about 15% of its staff) and another 1,000 last year. (HR Dive reports Indeed’s leaders cited slower hiring demand, but profits held steady.) In that light, the latest cuts aren’t a total surprise to those inside.

Still, it’s ironic: employees hired to help others find work are suddenly revising their own resumes. One senior developer  who asked not to be named  said the news was “a punch in the gut.” His team was building new AI-driven job-matching tools, and he laughed dryly, “Turns out the algorithm found my spot too.”

The timing also echoes a bigger industry trend. Recruit’s memo comes as big tech firms worldwide are retrenching to fund AI bets. Reuters notes that in recent months giants like Meta and Microsoft slashed staff explicitly to prioritize AI. And job-search isn’t immune: on June 24, fellow recruiting sites Monster and CareerBuilder combined and immediately filed for bankruptcy protection.

For context, this sector is under pressure. Staffing Industry Analysts recently warned the online recruiting market is in “significant realignment” thanks to new tech and investor demands. Even recruiting software users have felt it; outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas tallied 20,000 jobs lost in the first half of 2025 due to automation and tech shifts  often coded simply as “restructuring” rather than explicitly AI cuts.

Workers Face an Uncertain Future

For employees, the news is both ironic and unnerving. Glassdoor and Indeed helped millions worldwide write resumes and land jobs  now many of those who created the platforms’ features are suddenly in search of new ones. One longtime Glassdoor recruiter told colleagues she felt “surreal” that the site she promoted every day was effectively telling her “goodbye.”

Across corporate Slack channels and LinkedIn posts, workers expressed shock and even wry humor. (“I guess I’ll need to leave a review of Glassdoor on Glassdoor,” joked one affected UX designer.) The mood is anxious: “We were building AI tools to help people  now I have to compete with them,” said a development manager in Austin, quietly scanning internal boards for any hint of a redeployment.

The layoffs may also ripple outward to job seekers. Indeed and Glassdoor rank at or near the top of Google searches for employment advice and listings. Millions of people visit those sites daily to hunt for work; now the teams behind the scenes are smaller. Recruit insists the sites will continue running smoothly and that AI will fill the gap, but users might notice slower response or fewer new postings as HR teams shrink. It’s a paradox: fewer human recruiters around to vet job postings could mean more automated, impersonal matches.

Meanwhile, experts warn this story is not over. Ford CEO Jim Farley, for example, recently predicted AI could replace “half of all white-collar workers” in the U.S.. For now, global unemployment remains relatively low (around 4.1% in mid-2025), but tech layoffs can be concentrated. As one analyst noted, the real question is how companies treat the displaced: without reskilling or support, these cuts risk piling stress on a workforce already jittery about automation.

In the end, Recruit’s executives are betting the AI gamble pays off. They promise more “personalized” job matching and faster service if the human roles are cut. But at least for the moment, thousands of skilled workers are out of a job. The job sites themselves are suddenly a cautionary tale: even in the age of AI, the people behind the jobs matter  and when they go, it hurts. Only time will tell if the efficiency gains balance the human cost, but many affected employees are learning the hard lesson that in today’s tech world, no job is truly safe.