RedBalloon.work CEO Andrew Crapuchettes talks to Fox News Digital about the February jobs report and how artificial intelligence is disrupting hiring and productivity.
The jobs report for February showed a loss of 92,000 jobs, but according to RedBalloon CEO Andrew Crapuchettes, the true economic decline is not only in numbers – it is in technology.
Crapuchettes warns that invisible dismissals are happening as a clever trick to eliminate qualified American workers from the pool of applicants, creating a huge disruption that he says is causing a jump to the unemployment rate of 4.4% and a short-term “pain” for the economy.
“AI is causing a lot of disruption in the job market right now,” Crapuchettes told Fox News Digital. “[Companies] they are using AI effectively and thus labor productivity has gone up… one of the things AI is doing is driving more labor. Businesses should not be hiring too quickly or they are laying off people. And this is just a big mistake in the market. “
“In general, it’s still a very disappointing number. We would like to see employment reports growing regularly,” he continued. “But there are many different factors driving this. It’s not the only issue we’re seeing.”
MAJOR TECH COMPANIES BACK TRUMP PLEDGE TO PAY MORE FOR DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY BEFORE SIGNING.
The Labor Department on Friday reported that employers shed 92 jobs in February. This number was below the expectations of economists interviewed by LSEG, who estimated that the economy would add 59,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was 4.4%, slightly higher than economists’ expectations of 4.3%.
Two men visit a job site in Culver City, California. (Getty Images)
There were also significant freezes in government wages, manufacturing, information, construction, transportation and storage, as well as health services due to the strike.
“What’s happening is that job seekers are using AI and they’re applying for 100 jobs a day with their resume and their cover letter looking good, and throwing their resume out to the market,” Crapuchettes explained. “And guess what? AI wants the AI-written resume better. And the problem is that the AI-written resume makes it to the top, and then they bring those people to be interviewed, and it turns out… That the perfect resume and the perfect employee are not the same thing.”
“AI is great for doing boring work, but really being intelligent about someone is something that should be a human experience,” he continued. “A lot of HR tech today is going to AI for everything, and that’s causing this kind of wild disruption. So it’s harder and harder for people to get a job, because what’s really happening is you’re taking a very difficult person… and whittling down to a piece of paper that we call a resume, and then AI is making decisions based on that.”
Staff Writer Lori Chavez-DeRemer joins ‘Varney & Co.’ to address the weak jobs report for February and rising unemployment.
Crapuchettes admits that even at RedBalloon, AI allowed his team to triple the workload without adding a single person – a micro look at macroeconomic shift.
“I actually tripled my engineering department without adding more titles because of how we are really using AI. And that is a good thing, but in the short term, those are… a group of engineers who are not paid at RedBalloon because we are using AI successfully,” he said.
BLS data also showed that federal government employment is down 330,000 jobs, or 11%, from October 2024. Crapuchettes organizes this as a “handcuff” being removed from the private sector, which he says has always struggled to compete with government benefits.
O’Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O’Leary joins ‘Varney & Co.’ weigh in on President Donald Trump’s economic strategy, the AI-driven success of expansion and why gold still trumps Bitcoin in his portfolio.
“I know I’ve talked to employers over the past several years and they felt like they were always competing with the federal and state government for talent… Because it was their money that they were putting into the government, and they were hiring people that they really needed to be able to grow their business,” said the CEO.
“It will be a short-term pain as you lose all government jobs,” he reiterated. “They lose that money, but as they go into the private sector, it’s going to create economic activity that’s going to be long-term, I think, it’s going to be very beneficial to America.”
GET THE FOX BOOK ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
Military veterans and the CEOs of RedBalloon and MilitaryHire speak exclusively to Fox News Digital about how they are helping service members transition into civil servants.
His best advice for American workers facing a tough job market is to stay “AI-enabled,” arguing that even construction workers and truck drivers should embrace AI as a weapon to resist the inevitable.
“I hate to jump behind the AI bandwagon, but the truth is that the most requested thing for all jobs, all the departments at RedBalloon now are AI-enabled employees. So the employees are looking for people who are not afraid to know how to use AI to be successful and successful in their work. And obviously that feels strange… Well, to allow those places is to get technology.”
READ MORE FROM FOX BUSINESS
FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed this report.
#Invisible #layoffs #quietly #locking #Americans #job #market #CEO #warns
