As a business strategist, I view the recent wave of layoffs in renewables, technology, and manufacturing through a different lens than the headlines suggest. In 2025, the unemployment rate is 4.3%, yet the steepest cuts are in high-wage, subsidized sectors: 16,500 renewable jobs lost after $22 billion in cancelled projects, 143,000 in technology as AI streamlines operations, and 33,000 in manufacturing despite CHIPS Act incentives.

The broader economy is strained as well. Inflation, officially reported at 2.9%, is much higher when housing, food, and energy are measured realistically. This recessionary backdrop undermines the “soft landing” claim.

But the deeper issue is structural. Many of these jobs were never fully market-sustained. Billions in subsidies for renewables, long-running tech R&D credits, and manufacturing incentives artificially inflated employment. History shows that when government intervention props up industries, inefficiencies mount and eventually collapse follows. AI is beginning to reflect the same cycle: fueled by incentives, hype, and speculative investment, it creates inflated demand in some areas and displaces workers in others. Once efficiencies settle, will the correction be as sharp.
Two simultaneous events are converging: the end of the subsidized era through political shifts and an AI bubble burst resembling the dot-com crash. The key question is how this will reshape industries that operate outside both subsidized sectors and AI trends.

Subsidized Sectors and the Misleading Job Cuts Narrative

By Jean Nedell

1 min read