A survey of 600 UK HR professionals who made redundancies in the last 12 months reveals that 91.6% would approach those decisions differently if given the chance, according to new research from Careerminds UK. The data shows that 75% of respondents say the cuts cost more than they saved.
Widespread Regret Among HR Leaders
Only 8.4% of HR leaders say their AI-driven restructure delivered what was promised and would repeat the process unchanged. This means nine in 10 would approach things differently, with 41.2% saying they would overhaul their approach entirely, and 50.3% saying they would at least rethink which specific roles were cut.
Rapid Rehiring After Layoffs
Half of HR leaders (52.1%) reported that their organisation rehired for previously eliminated roles within just six months of making redundancies, while a further 17.8% had already begun rebuilding within three months. Only 2.1% of companies waited over a year. Many organisations discovered that the roles they had written off as replaceable were anything but.
Loss of Critical Skills and Expertise
Nearly one in three (32.9%) HR professionals said their organisation lost critical skills and expertise when employees were let go, and 28.1% said the remaining workforce lacked the skills to fill the knowledge gap left behind. Over half (54.6%) of organisations shared that their regret stemmed from automation needing significantly more human oversight than anticipated, meaning the efficiency gains that justified the cuts never fully materialised.
Mixed Results from AI Replacement
Only 21.4% said AI fully replaced the roles with no operational issues, while 12.3% said the problems caused by the layoffs outweighed the ones they solved. When asked what would have helped, the top answers were a clearer understanding of what AI can actually do (53.8%), more data on employee skills (40.6%), and the ability to test workforce scenarios before committing to cuts (33%).
Expert Commentary
Amanda Augustine, CPCC, Resident Careers Expert at Careerminds UK, said: "AI is a powerful tool, but it has never been a replacement for human judgement. When businesses stripped out the people closest to the work, they didn't just lose headcount — they lost the context, the relationships, and the instinct that no algorithm can replicate. The oversight burden that followed wasn't a surprise to the employees left behind. It was a surprise to the boardrooms that never asked them."
