"In September 2025, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company slashed 4,000 customer service roles, opting for the remaining 5,000 support workers to share their roles with AI agents. "I need less heads," Benioff said at the time."
"Citing data from the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines, Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok noted in a recent blog post that from 2016 through 2025, call center employment in the Philippines has risen each year, nearly doubling to 2 million over the 10-year span. He also found that from 2021 to March 2026, unemployment rates in the Philippines have decreased from 9% to about 4%, suggesting AI has not displaced offshore workers."
"But these jobs are also among the most susceptible to AI displacement. The Brookings Institution estimated that 86% of customer service representative tasks had high automation potential. The apparent contradiction of the job's potential to be automated alongside rising employment points to a centuries-old economic paradox reflected across labor more broadly, according to Slok."
""This is Jevons paradox in action," he wrote. "As AI makes call center work cheaper and faster, companies are buying more of it, not less.""
Salesforce reduced customer service roles by 4,000 and planned for remaining workers to share responsibilities with AI agents. Despite this, offshore customer service employment has grown. Call center employment in the Philippines rose every year from 2016 through 2025, nearly doubling to about 2 million. Unemployment in the Philippines fell from about 9% in 2021 to around 4% by March 2026, while India’s unemployment stayed near 7%. Offshore call centers expanded in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to lower labor costs. Brookings estimated 86% of customer service representative tasks have high automation potential. The pattern is linked to Jevons paradox: making work cheaper and faster increases consumption rather than eliminating it.
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