Paycom Fires 500+ Workers Via Text Message, Then Makes Them Join Webinar to Learn They're Fired

Imagine waking up on Wednesday morning, checking your phone, and seeing this text from your employer: "Please do not come into the office today."

That's it. No explanation. No context. Just... don't come in.

Then you get an email: Join a mandatory Zoom meeting at 8:30 AM for a "department update." So you log in, confused and anxious, along with hundreds of your coworkers. And that's when they tell you: Your job has been eliminated. You've been replaced by AI-driven automation. Your stuff will be mailed to you. You have 10 weeks.

This isn't a hypothetical nightmare scenario. This is exactly what happened to over 500 employees at Paycom on October 1st, 2025.

And here's the really fucked up part: Paycom is a human resources software company. Their entire business is helping other companies manage their employees. They sell HR tools. They advise clients on workforce management best practices. They position themselves as experts in "people operations."

Then they fire 500+ of their own people via text message and Zoom. Because AI can do it cheaper.

Let's break down what actually went down, why this is a template for how companies will handle mass AI layoffs going forward, and which jobs are getting clapped next.

What Actually Happened

On the morning of October 1st, 2025, employees across Paycom's operations started receiving cryptic text messages telling them not to come to the office. Multiple employees reported getting the exact same message: "Please do not come into the office today."

No explanation. No warning. Just immediate exclusion from the workplace.

Shortly after, those same employees received emails instructing them to join a mandatory virtual meeting at 8:30 AM. The meeting was billed as a "department update" - corporate speak for "we're about to ruin your day."

When employees logged into the webinar, company officials delivered the news: Over 500 positions were being eliminated as part of what Paycom called "a workforce restructuring due to efficiencies in advanced automation and AI-driven technologies."

Translation: AI can do your job now. You're done.

The affected employees were told:

• Their employment was terminated effective immediately
• Their personal belongings from the office would be shipped to them
• They would receive 10 weeks of severance pay
• They'd have access to "transition assistance" (whatever that means)

No chance to say goodbye to colleagues. No opportunity to retrieve personal items yourself. No gradual wind-down or transition period. Just a text, a webinar, and 10 weeks of pay to figure out what comes next.

According to the company's official statement, the layoffs affected "non-client-facing roles that have been automated." They claimed these positions were back-office functions that could now be handled by their AI-driven systems.

But multiple affected employees disputed this characterization. One employee told local news: "We're all client facing, so if Paycom said it wasn't, that's not true."

So either Paycom is lying about which roles were eliminated, or they have a very creative definition of "non-client-facing." Neither possibility inspires confidence.

The Brutal New Playbook for AI Layoffs

This isn't just about Paycom. This is about what we're going to see over and over as companies adopt AI and eliminate the workers it replaces.

Here's the template Paycom just established:

Step 1: Deploy AI tools internally
Quietly implement automation across departments. Test it. Refine it. Get it to the point where it can handle 80-90% of what your human employees do. Don't tell anyone what you're building toward.

Step 2: Identify "redundant" positions
Once the AI is working, calculate which human roles are now unnecessary. Frame this as "operational efficiency" and "advanced automation" - never use the word "replacing."

Step 3: Execute the cut swiftly and remotely
Don't give employees advance warning (they might sabotage systems or steal data, the thinking goes). Don't do it in person (too messy, too many emotions, potential for confrontation). Text message + mass webinar is the new standard. Clinical. Efficient. Cowardly.

Step 4: Lock them out immediately
No access to the office. No access to systems. No opportunity to take anything with you or say goodbye. Ship their stuff to them like they're a customer returning a defective product.

Step 5: Offer minimal severance, call it generous
10 weeks pay sounds reasonable until you realize most of these people have been with the company for years. That's barely enough time to land a new role in a market where everyone is cutting headcount and deploying similar automation.

Step 6: Claim you're still hiring
Paycom made sure to mention they're "still hiring across several departments" even as they axed 500+ employees. This creates the narrative that they're "transforming" not "declining" - just hiring different (probably fewer, higher-skilled, lower-headcount) roles.

This is the new normal. Text message firing followed by a webinar termination where hundreds or thousands of people learn simultaneously that they've been automated out of work.

It's efficient. It's scalable. It's absolutely fucking dystopian.

The Irony Is Off The Charts

Let's sit with this for a second.

Paycom sells HR software. Their product helps companies:

• Manage employee onboarding and offboarding
• Track employee performance and engagement
• Handle payroll and benefits administration
• Navigate employment law compliance
• Build "positive workplace culture"

Their marketing materials are full of phrases like "empower your people," "strategic talent management," and "employee-centric solutions."

Then they fire 7% of their workforce via text message because AI can do it cheaper.

If this is how an HR software company treats its own employees, what hope do workers at companies that aren't "people-focused" have?

The company that advises other businesses on "best practices" for employee relations just demonstrated that those best practices don't include basic human dignity when automation becomes an option.

And you can bet every single one of Paycom's clients is watching this closely. If the HR tech company can cut 500+ positions through AI automation, why can't they?

This Is Just The Beginning

Paycom's layoffs are part of a broader trend that's accelerating fast.

According to data covering the first seven months of 2025, generative AI technology has been responsible for over 10,000 documented job cuts across private employers. That's just the jobs where companies explicitly cited AI as the reason - the real number is almost certainly much higher as companies hide AI-driven cuts under generic "restructuring" language.

And we're seeing this play out across industries:

• Customer service roles - Chatbots and AI agents replacing human support teams
• Back-office operations - Data entry, processing, administrative tasks automated away
• Content creation - Marketing copy, basic writing, graphics handled by AI
• Code generation - Junior developer positions disappearing as AI handles basic programming
• Data analysis - Routine reporting and analytics automated

Notice what all these roles have in common? They're knowledge work - the jobs we were told were safe from automation. The jobs that required education, training, expertise.

Turns out none of that matters when AI can do 80% of the work for 1% of the cost.

Companies aren't waiting for AI to be perfect. They're deploying it as soon as it's "good enough" and cutting headcount immediately. The economic incentive is just too strong.

What You Can Do (Because "Just Learn AI" Isn't Enough)

If you work in any role that involves repetitive knowledge work - customer service, data processing, administrative tasks, content creation, basic analysis - you need to understand that what happened at Paycom is coming for your industry.

Here's what actually helps:

1. Build relationships that matter
Focus on work that requires genuine human connection, trust-building, and complex interpersonal dynamics. AI can generate a customer service response. It can't build a 5-year client relationship based on understanding their business and anticipating their needs.

2. Move toward strategic roles
Get involved in decision-making, planning, and work that requires judgment under ambiguity. AI is great at pattern matching and execution. It's terrible at navigating organizational politics, reading between the lines, and making calls when the data is contradictory or incomplete.

3. Develop domain expertise that's hard to replicate
Deep knowledge of specific industries, regulatory environments, or complex systems takes years to build. AI can be trained fast, but it lacks the contextual understanding that comes from actually living in an industry for a decade.

4. Keep your skills current and visible
Even if your current job feels secure, maintain an active presence in your industry. Network. Share insights. Build a reputation. If you get text-message fired with 10 weeks severance, you need to land fast - and that requires people already knowing who you are.

5. Build financial cushion aggressively
We're entering an era where "loyal employee who performs well" doesn't protect you from getting automated out of work. Keep 6-12 months expenses saved. Diversify income streams if possible. Don't assume your job will exist in its current form 2 years from now.

6. Pay attention to your company's AI investments
If your company is heavily investing in AI tools for your department, that's not them trying to "augment" you. That's them building your replacement and testing whether it works. Start planning your exit before the text message arrives.

The Bottom Line

Paycom just showed us the future of AI-driven layoffs: Swift, remote, impersonal, and justified by "efficiency."

Over 500 people woke up on October 1st with jobs and ended the day unemployed - notified via text message, fired via webinar, locked out of their workplace, belongings shipped to them like returned merchandise.

This wasn't a struggling company making desperate cuts. This was Oklahoma City's largest tech employer, a profitable HR software company, eliminating positions because AI automation made those workers redundant.

The cruelty of the execution wasn't a bug - it's a feature. Remote termination at scale is efficient. It minimizes disruption. It prevents emotional confrontations. It's the logical endpoint of treating humans as resources to be optimized.

And it's about to become standard practice.

Every company watching this is learning: You can cut hundreds of positions, blame it on AI-driven efficiency, handle the whole thing remotely, and face minimal backlash. The playbook works.

The question isn't whether more companies will follow Paycom's lead.

The question is whether you'll be ready when they do.