More big companies bet they can still grow without hiring

It’s the corporate gamble of the moment: Can you run a company, increasing sales and juicing profits, without adding people?

- Chip Cutter

Firms seem intent on taking up a new staffing model. ISTOCKPHOTO

American employers are increasingly making the calculation that they can keep the size of their teams flat—or shrink through layoffs—without harming their businesses. Part of that thinking is the belief that artificial intelligence will be used to pick up some of the slack and automate more processes. Companies are also hesitant to make any moves in an economy many still describe as uncertain.

JPMorgan Chase's chief financial officer told investors recently that the bank now has a “very strong bias against having the reflective response” to hire more people for any given need. Aerospace and defence company RTX boasted last week that its sales rose even without adding employees.

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, sent a memo to staffers this month saying the firm “will constrain head count growth through the end of the year” and reduce roles that could be more efficient with AI. Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, also said it plans to keep its head count roughly flat over the next three years, even as its sales grow.

“If people are getting more productive, you don’t need to hire more people,” Airbnb’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, said in an interview. “I see a lot of companies preemptively holding the line, forecasting and hoping that they can have smaller workforces.”