AXIOS July 8, 2025
The above chart may explain why your boss is taking longer to get back to you lately: She’s got a lot more underlings to watch over.
Driving the news: People managers now oversee about twice as many workers as just five years ago, per a new analysis.
Why it matters: Middle managers — i.e. bosses who have bosses — were already quietly going extinct, and now AI may be hastening the process.
By the numbers: There are now nearly six individual contributors per manager at the 8,500 small businesses analyzed in a report by Gusto, which handles payroll for small and medium-sized employers. That’s up from a little over three in 2019.
- “It’s happening broadly across the economy,” Nich...
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