I imagine this is largely an effect of hiring freezes while they try to pressure their current staff to make up the difference with LLMs. This would achieve both:

1. Reduced labor costs long-term (if it works)
2. Generate culture of employees being pressured to leverage LLMs instead of requesting an increase in staffing.

But, if I’m right, that doesn’t mean that the current hiring freeze is actually panning out for these companies. I feel like all managers have essentially been tasked with this for the last 1.5 years.