AI 'Layoff Laundering' Investment Funds as a 'Struggle Tactic' for Lee Jae-myung's Hyundai Motor Union
A company implementing AI is attempting to secure investment funds through layoffs, and President Lee Jae-myung has called the Hyundai Motor union's demand for robot adoption negotiations a "struggle tactic" and urged them to "quickly adapt."
On the 22nd of last month, the Hyundai Motor union issued a newsletter regarding the deployment of the humanoid robot "Atlas" to overseas factories, stating, "Not a single robot can enter the production site without a labor-management agreement."
Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun expanded the acquisition of US robotics company Boston Dynamics in June 2021 through personal and US investments, expanding Hyundai Motor's US electric vehicle expansion from the outset to the acquisition of a robotics company rather than parts development.
The robotics company was acquired in December 2020 through an 80% stake held by the Hyundai Motor Group for 1.057 trillion won. The ownership structure is 30% for Hyundai Motor, 20% for parts manufacturer Hyundai Mobis, and 10% for Hyundai Glovis. In effect, Hyundai Group invested hundreds of billions of won into Chairman Chung Eui-sun's personal company, establishing a personal control structure for his 20% stake and transferring his personal assets to the United States.
The Hyundai Motor union responded to the introduction of humanoid robots into production sites by stating, "If the company acts unilaterally, the situation will be overturned. Given the recent management's sideways actions, they will first move to overseas factories capable of deploying robots. They will likely fill in the remaining domestic supply, and then idle the remaining factory. It's clear that a new factory capable of deploying robots or maximizing automation will be built there." At a meeting with senior secretaries and aides that afternoon, President Lee stated, "It seems a labor union has declared that they will keep robots out of the workplace because of production robots," adding, "This isn't real; it's probably part of a struggle tactic."
President Lee continued, "However, in the past, when steam engines and machines were introduced, there was a movement called the Machine Destruction Movement, demanding that people destroy the machines because they were stealing jobs. We cannot avoid the incoming tide of the giant cart. Ultimately, we must quickly adapt to that society."
The Associated Press (AP) reported on the 2nd, under the headline "Did AI Really Drive Layoffs at Amazon and Other Companies? It Can Be Hard to Tell," that "The bank's economic research division recently reported in its monthly AI adoption tracker that 'very few employees have been affected by AI-driven layoffs since December.'" The report was released on January 16th, before Amazon, Dow, and Pinterest announced layoffs.
N. Lee Plum, who worked at Amazon for eight years and was the team's "AI Enablement" lead, was laid off last week in the 1,600-person layoff. He says the company made extensive use of Amazon's new AI coding tools just before his layoff, naming him a top user.
"AI should drive return on investment," Plum told the AP. "Less headcount demonstrates efficiency, attracts more capital, and boosts stock price. So maybe they were oversized to begin with, then they cut headcount, then attributed it to AI, and now there's a value story." "It's not that AI isn't great, but it requires a lot of coordination and most of the benefits go to individual employees rather than the organization," Karan Girotra, a professor of business administration at Cornell University's Sloan School of Business, told the AP, speaking negatively about "AI layoffs." "People can save time and get things done faster."
The New York Times reported on the 1st that, according to research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, artificial intelligence was mentioned in announcements of over 50,000 layoffs by 2025, but most analysts believe Amazon is cutting jobs to secure funds for AI investments such as data centers.
The New York Times continued, “Investors may welcome these preemptive moves (AI layoffs), but some skeptics (including the media) argue that companies are unfairly blaming themselves for the layoffs, or ‘AI-washing.’” Market research firm Forrester stated in a January report that “when many companies announce AI-related layoffs, they do so without mature and proven AI applications to fill the roles, revealing a trend called ‘AI-washing.’ This is the phenomenon of attributing reduced financial incentives to future AI adoption.”
Amazon announced on the 3rd that it would cut 16,000 corporate jobs, in addition to the 14,000 it announced in June of last year.
The New York Times reported that Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy stated in a June blog post that "work will change as we adopt more generative AI and agents," and that "we expect to see a reduction in our overall workforce in the coming years." However, Jassy later backtracked on the connection between the layoffs and AI, and the company stated that most of the layoffs were due to bureaucracy reductions.
Pinterest announced last month that it would cut approximately 15% of its workforce, saying it would "reallocate resources to AI-focused roles."
The announcement, posted on its website, reads:
On January 26, 2026, the company announced a global restructuring plan (the "Plan"), approved by its board of directors. The Plan includes workforce reductions and office space reductions that are expected to impact less than 15% of its workforce. The company expects pre-tax restructuring costs to range from $35 million to $45 million, primarily cash outlays. The company plans to exclude restructuring costs from its non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Enrique Lores said in a November investor call, "We see a significant opportunity to embed AI into HP," adding, "This could lead to up to 6,000 job cuts over the next few years."
Regarding the phenomenon of AI being touted as a front for mass layoffs and criticized as "AI laundering," Wharton School professor Peter Cappelli told the New York Times, "Companies are saying, 'We're expecting to deploy AI to replace these jobs,' but that hasn't happened yet. That's one reason to be skeptical."
Molly Kinder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies AI and work, said of these types of “predictive layoffs,” “It allows executives to signal to the market, ‘We’re on the cutting edge, we’ve implemented AI, we’ve figured out the savings,’” adding that this is “a very investor-friendly message” and carries far more weight than saying, ‘The business is in jeopardy.’”
Citing recent research she participated in at the Yale Budget Institute, Kinder said, “AI hasn’t yet meaningfully changed the overall market.” She added that in the current climate, criticizing policies like tariffs could anger the president, so “framing layoffs as AI-related is not risky,” she told the New York Times, “even if the real cause may be something else.”
According to Layoffs.fyi, which broadcasts daily industry layoffs in the United States, tech companies have laid off more than 700,000 employees globally since 2022, but much of that has been to address over-hiring during the pandemic. Handoffs. reported on the 2nd that 123,941 tech workers were laid off from 269 tech companies last year, 71,981 government employees were laid off by DOGE, led by Musk, and a total of 182,528 federal employees will leave their jobs by 2025.
Handoffs. is a startup that tracks tech company layoffs and the Trump administration's US government downsizing.
The Hyundai Motor Company union stated that the company discussed the unmanned factory project "DF247" at the Global Leaders Forum (GLF), Hyundai Motor Group's top strategy meeting, on the 7th of last month, and that "the company intends to implement a dream factory that eliminates people from production sites and operates solely with artificial intelligence (AI)-based robots."
The union stated in its newsletter that day, "This is on a different level from the industrial transition from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles. Back then, both carriages and cars were made by people. Now, humans make robots, and those robots make robots. And those robots are replacing all jobs."
On the 22nd of last month, the Hyundai Motor Company union announced in a newsletter regarding the deployment of the humanoid robot "Atlas" to overseas factories, "Not a single robot can enter the production site without a labor-management agreement."
The Blue House approached the Hyundai Motor Company union about its robot-related agenda through the Economic, Social and Labor Council, which directly reports to the President. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) withdrew from the council in 1999, and Hyundai Motor Company is affiliated with the KCTU.
SBS reported on the 2nd that a high-ranking government official said regarding the Economic, Social and Labor Council's approach, "The president recognizes that he cannot go against the tide, and the government must also build social consensus to prepare for the changing times."
The official added that the government will "go beyond the simple introduction of robots and discuss in advance at the national level the challenges we will face in the AI era, such as worker coexistence measures and job transitions."
Under the Moon Jae-in administration, the collusion between the new government and the third generation of conglomerates has been strategically implemented as "financial investment in asset transfer" under the pretext of "seizing future profits with next-generation batteries," and Lee Jae-yong and Chung Eui-sun's "fund transfer to the United States" has been portrayed as a "stock price manipulation" production.
Lee Jae-yong's acquisition of Harman was driven by personal preference. Harman, the audio company he acquired 15 years ago for $8 billion (9 trillion won), was later acquired in December of last year for €1.5 billion, following a surge in Samsung's stock price under Lee Jae-myung.
Fifteen years later, the company continues to acquire automotive electronics businesses, separating them from Samsung and serving as a vehicle for Chairman Lee's global M&A strategy to expand its assets.
See <Lee Jae-yong's 'Harman Acquisition': Chung Eui-sun's 'Robot' Conglomerate Inheritance to US: 'Stock Price Manipulation', October 9, 2024>
<High Profits in Electric Vehicle 'Battery Packs,' 'Coating,' and 'Distribution Boards'; Hyundai Motor and LG Ensol 'Ignored,' January 24, 2022>