Poll of 50 Canadian CEOs: 46% Expect AI to Let Companies Grow With Fewer Workers

The evidence on AI and jobs is shifting from forecasts toward what executives say they plan to do.

The newest data point is a survey of Canadian bosses. EY-Parthenon, a division of the global accounting firm EY, polled 50 CEOs of large Canadian companies in August and September for its latest Canada CEO Outlook survey. It published the results Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Forty-six percent said many companies will reach their long-term growth targets with "a smaller workforce than they have today."

What the CEOs said

Most respondents lead publicly traded companies with annual sales above US$1 billion, according to EY. Nearly a quarter reported revenue between US$10 billion and US$49.9 billion. The sample spans consumer goods, finance and health care.

"As productivity gains begin to materialize, I'm seeing the conversation shift from efficiency to value," said Shane Dunn, managing partner at EY-Parthenon Canada.

Dunn added that "an overwhelming majority of Canadian CEOs indicate they can measurably demonstrate a return from AI investments, with the primary productivity measure being higher output without additional headcount or capital."

That is a statement of intent, not a layoff count. Fifty executives is a small sample, and the poll measures what bosses expect, not what has happened to payrolls.

The survey also points to a more modest near-term picture: it found that 82 per cent of respondents see AI having a greater impact on employee roles, skills and workplace organization than on actual workforce size over the next three years.

The layoff list keeps growing

The survey landed after a run of AI-related layoff announcements. On Monday, Oct. 26, Microsoft announced it is offering voluntary buyouts to 60,000 members of its 223,000-strong global workforce. The company framed the decision as a move to contain costs and help fund its massive AI investments.

Barclays announced last week plans to cut roughly 5,000 jobs, about five per cent of its workforce, as the bank embraces AI in a bid to slash costs and boost returns.

American Express took a $336 million restructuring charge as it plans to cut around 5% of its workforce, the company announced during its third-quarter earnings call. It employed around 77,000 people by the end of 2025, meaning the layoffs could affect between 3,000 and 4,000 employees.

CEO Stephen Squeri tied AI to the company's internal changes on that call. "There's been a lot of talk about how companies are using AI to increase productivity, automate processes, and generally make their organizations more efficient," he said. "We're using AI to do all of those things too."

Amazon said in January that it would eliminate around 16,000 corporate roles globally. That followed 14,000 cuts in October 2025. Beth Galetti, the company's senior vice president of people experience and technology, described the January move in a company memo as part of broader efforts to cut back on bureaucracy. In May, Amazon's Selling Partner Services team cut additional jobs.

Angi said in January it was cutting around 350 jobs "in light of AI-driven efficiency improvements." A Jan. 7 SEC filing put the savings at between $70 million and $80 million in annual spending.

Block, Coinbase and Standard Chartered have also cited AI as a key reason for their layoffs, according to Business Insider's running tally of 2026 layoffs.

The labour market has not cracked

The broader economy does not yet look like one in mass-layoff mode. Unemployment has not spiked, and economists frequently describe the environment as "low-fire, low-hire," in Business Insider's words.

Canada has yet to see AI-linked layoffs announced at the same scale as those abroad, CBC reported, though job cuts are happening. Toronto-based BenchSci explicitly cited AI as the driving factor behind more than 200 layoffs beginning in 2024 and extending into this year.

The CBC's coverage of the EY poll carried a subhead saying experts think it is too soon to fear a "job apocalypse." Viet Vu, manager of economic research at Toronto Metropolitan University's Dais think-tank, said: "We really don't see a negative labour market impact for any segment of the population that we can attribute to AI, and that includes the young people. Where I think the fear lies is in the future."

TD Economics senior economist Thomas Feltmate wrote in a report earlier this month that "the AI job apocalypse remains a risk scenario, not the base case," predicting a gradual adjustment in the job market rather than a sudden shock.

The World Economic Forum offers a longer-range view. Its survey last year found 41% of companies worldwide expected to reduce their workforces in the next five years because of AI. The same survey found jobs in big data, fintech and AI are expected to double by 2030.

Ottawa is betting on the growth side. The federal government's AI strategy, discussed on CBC Radio's The House on June 10, lays out a plan for 250,000 new AI-relevant jobs over five years. Whether those jobs offset the cuts CEOs are now contemplating is untested.

What is still unsettled

Corporate messaging has an attribution problem. Citing AI in a restructuring can be a way to frame cost-cutting, which makes it hard to separate genuine automation from ordinary cost reduction or bureaucracy trimming. Amazon's stated reason in January, for instance, was bureaucracy, not AI.

The 46% figure describes what a sample of 50 executives expect. Whether those expectations turn into measurable job losses in the unemployment data is the question the next several quarters will answer.