Under the Radar

Under the Radar – December 5, 2025

by

The Market Just Shifted: Only 4 Qualified Paths Forward

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Bottom Line Up Front

We’re only listing four career opportunities this week.

That’s not an oversight. It’s an honest assessment of the current market.

The December 2-3 announcements. Salesforce/AWS/Snowflake/Anthropic giving 24,600+ companies push-button agent deployment fundamentally changed what we can confidently recommend.

December 4 brought Google into the race: partnering with Replit to bring “vibe coding” to enterprise customers, where anyone can build software through natural language prompts. Replit exploded from $10M to $100M in revenue in just 9 months. Combined with Anthropic’s Claude Code hitting $1B in run-rate revenue and Cursor reaching a $29.3B valuation, every major cloud provider now offers push-button coding and agent deployment.

What changed:

  • AI Agent Builders (formerly #1): Commoditized overnight
  • Local Business AI Implementation (formerly #2): Small businesses losing 120K jobs/month, can’t afford consultants

The fact that we can’t identify a fifth opportunity that meets our standards tells you everything about how rapidly the landscape is shifting.

November added 71,321 more layoffs (worst November since 2022), bringing 2025’s total to 1.17 million. The highest since the pandemic. Meanwhile, planned hiring hit its lowest point in 15 years.

The four opportunities that remain meet our 70/100 threshold because they either:

  1. Thrive in the new environment (Forward Deployed Engineers benefit from platform commoditization)
  2. Are protected by human factors (Healthcare Coordinators, regulatory barriers)
  3. Require specialized expertise (Synthetic Data Creation, technical complexity)
  4. Serve growing markets (Voice AI Implementation, enterprise deployments)

If you’re in immediate financial crisis and need money within 30 days, we’ve created a separate resource: Emergency Income Reality Check. It covers what actually works (temp agencies, unemployment, gig economy) vs. what doesn’t (oversaturated fields, scams). We will validate that document and update weekly as needed.

Subscribe: theopenrecordl3c.substack.com

Top 4 Career Opportunities

No #5 This Week – Only These Four Meet Our Standards

#1: Forward Deployed Engineer (NEW – UP from unranked)

Score: 85/100 | Salary: $135K-$200K | Status: THRIVING

What Changed: This is the ONE role that gets STRONGER as platforms commoditize basic AI work.

The Data:

  • 1,165% year-over-year job growth (Jan-Oct 2025 vs 2024)
  • Median salary: $174K (Palantir range: $135K-$200K)
  • October 2025: Highest FDE postings EVER
  • 35% of postings explicitly mention AI Agents
  • 31% require LLM experience

Why It’s #1:

December 2-3 changed everything. Salesforce gave 12,000+ companies push-button agent deployment. Snowflake’s 12,600 customers got Claude integration. AWS customers got AgentCore.

Basic AI agent building = commoditized.

But someone still has to make those agents WORK in complex, real-world customer environments.

That’s Forward Deployed Engineers.

What FDEs Actually Do:

  • Embed with customers on-site (25-50% travel)
  • Deploy production AI systems in specific environments (factory floors, airgapped facilities, hospitals)
  • Write customer-specific integrations with existing systems
  • Troubleshoot deployed systems in real-time
  • Bridge technical and business needs

The Paradox:

Platform tools (Salesforce Agentforce, AWS AI services) eliminate generic implementation work but CREATE demand for specialists who can deploy in complex environments where generic tools fail.

Example:

  • Company clicks Salesforce Agentforce button → gets generic sales agent
  • Reality: Generic agent doesn’t integrate with legacy CRM, doesn’t understand product catalog structure, fails on edge cases
  • Solution: Hire FDE to make Agentforce work with their specific systems

Who Should Pursue:

  • Strong coding skills (Python, JavaScript, SQL – you write production code)
  • Comfortable with 25-50% travel
  • Enjoy customer-facing work (explaining technical to executives)
  • Can handle ambiguous problems (every customer is different)

Who Should Skip:

  • Hate travel or need predictable 9-5
  • Prefer backend/isolated work
  • Can’t code well (not entry-level for career changers)

Silent Firing Risk: LOW

  • Too specialized to replace quietly
  • Client-facing (harder to eliminate)
  • Growing field (companies hiring, not cutting)
  • Travel makes “RTO mandate” tactic ineffective

Companies Hiring:

  • Palantir (pioneered role, 50% of workforce are FDEs)
  • OpenAI (established FDE team early 2025)
  • Anthropic (Claude enterprise deployments)
  • Ramp (~15 FDEs, hiring more)
  • Deloitte (deploying Claude for 470,000 employees)

FDE thrives NOW but watch for platform evolution making custom integration easier (5-10 year window).

Full 30-Day Action Plan: theopenrecord.org/resources/30D-forward-deployed-engineer.html

#2: Healthcare Patient Care Coordinator (UP from #4)

Score: 80/100 | Salary: $45K-$95K | Status: Protected, Pressure Building

The Numbers:

  • 52,000+ openings (Indeed, November 2025)
  • 29% projected growth through 2033 (BLS – much faster than average)
  • Entry-level accessible (no 4-year degree required for many positions)
  • Median salary: $48,420 (BLS), range $45K-$95K depending on setting/experience

Why It’s Holding Strong:

AI creates MORE coordination complexity, not less.

As hospitals deploy AI diagnostic tools and automated scheduling, the need for human coordinators who can:

  • Navigate insurance complexity
  • Explain medical situations to patients/families
  • Advocate across providers
  • Handle exceptions AI systems can’t process

Protection Factors:

  • Physical presence required (can’t coordinate remotely only)
  • HIPAA protection limits algorithmic management
  • Human relationships (patients trust people, not bots)
  • Crisis response (medical emergencies need human judgment)
  • Regulatory complexity (insurance, compliance, multi-provider coordination)

Vulnerabilities:

  • AI-augmented productivity metrics (unrealistic expectations)
  • “Digital transformation” excuse for cuts
  • Scheduling/documentation automated (reduces some tasks)

Who Should Pursue:

  • Strong communication and organizational skills
  • Comfortable handling emotionally charged situations
  • Can navigate bureaucracy (insurance, referrals, authorizations)
  • Detail-oriented (tracking multiple patients across systems)

Silent Firing Risk: MEDIUM

  • AI productivity metrics could become impossible to meet
  • But: Physical presence and HIPAA make quiet elimination harder
  • Entry-level role = easier to hire than to secretly eliminate

Where to Find:

  • Indeed: “Patient Care Coordinator” + your city
  • Hospital career pages (search “coordinator”)
  • Medical groups, specialty practices
  • Health insurance companies (utilization management)

Full 30-Day Action Plan: theopenrecord.org/resources/30D-healthcare-coordinator.html

#3: Synthetic Data Creation (UP from #5)

Score: 75/100 | Salary: $130K-$200K | Status: Specialized, Low Volume

The Market:

  • $1.81 billion market (projected end of 2024)
  • 31.1% CAGR (compound annual growth rate)
  • Gartner projection: 60% of AI training data will be synthetic by 2025

Why It’s Critical:

As AI models consume more training data, privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA) make real data harder to access. Companies need synthetic data that maintains statistical properties while protecting privacy.

What You Actually Do:

  • Generate artificial datasets that preserve statistical properties of real data
  • Ensure privacy compliance (no actual patient/customer data exposed)
  • Validate synthetic data quality (does AI trained on it perform well?)
  • Work with data science teams on specific use cases

Protection Factors:

  • Highly technical (requires data science/ML expertise)
  • Privacy regulations driving demand (GDPR, CCPA enforcement)
  • Small specialized teams (not easy to eliminate one person quietly)
  • Growing regulatory scrutiny (EU AI Act, state-level requirements)

Vulnerabilities:

  • Small market (limited entry points)
  • Requires advanced technical background (not accessible to most)
  • Some synthetic data generation being automated (tools emerging)

Who Should Pursue:

  • Strong data science background (Python, statistics, ML)
  • Understanding of privacy regulations
  • Experience with ML training pipelines
  • Can explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

Who Should Skip:

  • Don’t have technical foundation (this is advanced work)
  • Need immediate income (requires significant background)
  • Looking for high-volume job market (this is niche)

Silent Firing Risk: LOW

  • Too specialized to lose quietly
  • Small teams (one person leaving = obvious gap)
  • Technical expertise hard to replace

Where to Look:

  • AI research labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Research)
  • Healthcare AI companies (privacy-critical)
  • Financial services (regulatory requirements)
  • Government contractors (security clearance + synthetic data)

#4: Voice AI Implementation Specialist (DOWN from #3)

Score: 70/100 | Salary: $90K-$160K | Status: Growing, Platform Pressure

The Market:

  • $2.4B (2024) → $47.5B by 2034 (34.8% CAGR)
  • 90% of hospitals projected to use AI agents by end of 2025
  • Enterprise deployments accelerating (customer service, healthcare, internal ops)

Why It Still Makes Top 4:

Voice AI systems require specialists who understand both:

  • Technical implementation (APIs, integrations, voice recognition)
  • Human interaction patterns (how people actually talk, edge cases)

Platform tools help but don’t eliminate the need.

What You Do:

  • Deploy voice AI systems in healthcare, call centers, enterprise settings
  • Integrate with existing phone systems and workflows
  • Train systems on specific vocabularies (medical terms, product names)
  • Handle edge cases (accents, background noise, unclear speech)
  • Monitor and improve deployed systems

Protection Factors:

  • Healthcare focus (HIPAA compliance, high-stakes accuracy)
  • Complex integrations (existing phone systems, workflows)
  • Human interaction expertise (understanding how people actually talk)
  • Ongoing optimization (systems need continuous improvement)

Vulnerabilities:

  • Platform tools encroaching (easier deployment reduces need)
  • Consultants easier to cut (vs. employees)
  • Some implementations becoming standardized

Who Should Pursue:

  • Technical background (APIs, systems integration)
  • Understanding of voice technology and NLP
  • Customer-facing comfortable (training staff, handling escalations)
  • Healthcare or call center experience a plus

Silent Firing Risk: MEDIUM-HIGH

  • Consultants easier to eliminate (project complete = natural exit)
  • Platform tools reducing complexity
  • But: Healthcare deployments still require deep expertise

Where to Look:

  • Healthcare AI companies
  • Call center technology providers
  • Enterprise AI vendors (Google, Microsoft, Amazon)
  • Consulting firms specializing in AI implementation

What We Dropped & Why

Two former top recommendations no longer meet our 70/100 threshold.

AI Agent Builders: Commoditized (December 2-3, 2025)

Previously #1 → Now Bifurcating Rapidly

What Happened:

December 2-3, 2025:

  • Salesforce Agentforce 2.0: 24,600+ companies got push-button agent deployment
  • AWS AgentCore: Enterprise customers got unified agent framework
  • Snowflake + Anthropic: 12,600 customers got Claude integration
  • Result: Basic AI agent building became point-and-click

The 5,033 job postings we cited likely include MANY of the commoditized roles that just became push-button.

What’s Still Protected (But Competitive):

  • Complex multi-system integration (senior architects)
  • Novel use cases not covered by templates
  • Security and governance specialists
  • AI infrastructure/backend engineering

Better Alternative: Forward Deployed Engineer (deploys agents in complex customer environments where platforms fail)

Original 30-Day Plan (Read Warnings): theopenrecord.org/resources/30D-ai-agent-builders.html

Local Business AI Implementation: Market Collapsing

Previously #2 → Small Business Crisis

What Happened:

November 2025 (ADP Report):

  • Small businesses lost 120,000 jobs in November alone. (ADP Data)
  • Largest monthly drop in 2.5 years
  • “Cautious consumers,” “uncertain environment”

Meanwhile:

  • Salesforce Starter ($25/user/month) includes Agentforce
  • Small Business Edition specifically targets SMBs
  • Pre-built agents for common small business needs

The Math Doesn’t Work:

Small businesses are:

  • Hemorrhaging workers (120K jobs/month)
  • Getting push-button AI from Salesforce
  • NOT hiring $80K-$150K consultants

75% of SMBs investing in AI? Yes, via $25/month SaaS platforms, not consultants.

Better Alternative: If you have consulting skills, focus on enterprise (FDE) or healthcare (Patient Care Coordinator)

Original 30-Day Plan (Read Warnings): theopenrecord.org/resources/30D-local-business-ai.html

One to Watch: AI Compliance & Ethics Specialist

Emerging 2027-2028 | Projected Salary: $90K-$150K

Why It’s Not Top 4 Yet:

  • Demand isn’t there YET (regulations exist, enforcement/hiring lags)
  • Market still defining the role (legal? technical? hybrid?)
  • Local governments can’t afford dedicated staff (budget constraints)
  • Companies resisting compliance costs

But Watch This Space:

Right Now in Michigan: Attorney General Dana Nessel is fighting a data center approval process that shows exactly why this role is needed.

The Saline Township Fight (December 2025):

  • DTE Energy wants fast-track approval for 1.4 GW data center
  • No public hearing, no discovery, contracts with “blacked out sections”
  • $500M+ infrastructure costs, unclear who pays if project fails
  • Governor Whitmer supporting, bipartisan legislators pressuring approval
  • December 3: 2-hour virtual “hearing” (Microsoft Teams only)
  • December 5: MPSC vote

Nessel’s Response:

“This appears to be a rush job… extraordinary and unprecedented political and industry pressure to rubber-stamp… what happens in Saline could shape energy policy for decades.”

The Problem:

Nessel is ONE PERSON trying to:

  • Review technical contracts
  • Assess energy infrastructure impacts
  • Represent ratepayer interests
  • Set policy precedent
  • Organize public engagement

This should be a TEAM. That’s the emerging role.

What AI Compliance Specialists Will Do:

For Local Governments:

  • Review data center proposals BEFORE approval pressure
  • Calculate actual cost-per-job (not PR numbers)
  • Assess grid capacity and environmental impact
  • Compare company promises to historical outcomes
  • Prepare questions for public hearings

For State Agencies:

  • Develop frameworks for AI infrastructure oversight
  • Track project outcomes vs. promises
  • Advise Public Service Commissions on technical standards
  • Monitor cumulative regional impacts

For Companies (Internal Compliance):

  • Ensure AI systems meet regulatory requirements
  • Conduct pre-deployment safety assessments
  • Document decision-making for audits
  • Liaise with government oversight

Timeline:

2025-2026: Early Adopters

  • OpenAI, Anthropic, Google hiring AI safety teams
  • Some states creating positions (California, Colorado)
  • Mostly at big tech, not local government

2027-2028: Market Matures

  • EU AI Act enforcement requires compliance officers
  • U.S. states follow California model
  • Local governments hiring consultants
  • Standard career path emerges

2029-2030: Established Profession

  • Certifications available
  • University programs training specialists
  • Every major company has compliance team
  • Counties hire dedicated staff

If You’re In School Now:

  • Focus: Technical AI literacy + policy/legal frameworks
  • Degrees: Computer Science + Public Policy, or Law + AI Ethics
  • Watch: EU AI Act implementation, state regulations
  • Network: Organizations like Partnership on AI, AI Now Institute

If You’re Career Changer:

  • Legal background + learn AI basics = viable path
  • Technical background + learn governance = viable path
  • Policy experience + AI literacy = viable path
  • Position for 2027 hiring wave

Your PivotIntel Connection:

This is WHY pivotintel.org exists:

  • Track all 17 Michigan projects
  • Document financial terms, job promises
  • Calculate subsidies per actual job created
  • Provide data for public hearings
  • Give communities intelligence to negotiate

Why It’s “One to Watch” Not Top 4: Demand isn’t there yet, but trajectory is clear. If you’re in school or have 2-3 year positioning window, this is worth preparing for.

The Barrier That Just Fell (December 2-3, 2025)

What Happened in a little more than 48 Hours:

December 2, 2025 – AWS re:Invent:

  • Amazon Bedrock AgentCore: Unified framework for building and deploying AI agents
  • Pre-built agents: Customer service, sales, marketing, operations
  • Integration with existing AWS services
  • 12,000+ AWS enterprise customers can deploy immediately

December 3, 2025 – Salesforce:

  • Agentforce 2.0: Pre-built AI agents across sales, service, marketing, commerce
  • Atlas reasoning engine (Anthropic integration)
  • Push-button deployment for Salesforce customers
  • No custom coding required for basic agent deployment

December 3, 2025 – Snowflake + Anthropic:

  • $200 million partnership announced
  • Claude models integrated into Snowflake platform
  • 12,600+ Snowflake customers get AI agent capability
  • Data stays in customer environment (security/compliance)

December 3, 2025 – Anthropic Acquires Bun:

  • Developer tools company acquisition
  • Claude Code reaches $1B annualized revenue milestone (up from $400M in July)
  • Focus on developer infrastructure, not just enterprise

Plus Recent Context (October 2025):

  • Deloitte + Anthropic: 470,000 employees deploying Claude across 150 countries (largest enterprise deployment ever)
  • IBM + Anthropic: Partnership to integrate Claude into IBM software products
  • Microsoft + Anthropic: Expanded Azure partnership with tens of billions in compute capacity commitment

The Math:

12,000+ companies (Salesforce Agentforce users) + similar scale AWS/Snowflake customer bases + 470,000 Deloitte employees = Hundreds of thousands of workers with immediate access to agent deployment capability.

December 4, 2025 – Google + Replit Partnership:

  • Multi-year partnership announced between Google Cloud and AI coding startup Replit
  • Replit expanding Google Cloud usage, integrating Google’s Gemini models
  • Focuses on “vibe coding” – creating software through natural language prompts rather than traditional programming
  • Replit grew from $10M to $100M annual revenue in 9 months after launching AI agent feature
  • Google competing directly with Anthropic’s Claude Code ($1B run-rate revenue) and Cursor ($29.3B valuation)
  • Combined with Anthropic/Salesforce/AWS announcements: Every major cloud provider now offering push-button coding/agent deployment

(Note: Significant customer overlap between platforms, but point stands. Massive simultaneous capability distribution)

What This Means for Workers:

These companies didn’t receive:

  • Retraining programs for displaced workers
  • Transition timelines
  • Severance guarantees
  • Labor protections

They received: Infrastructure to eliminate headcount faster.

The Timing:

This wasn’t gradual. This was coordinated infrastructure-level change announced within 48 hours. AWS re:Invent (Amazon’s annual conference) provided the platform for synchronized announcements.

Why AI Agent Builders Got Commoditized:

Before Dec 2: Company needs custom sales agent

  • Hire AI agent builder (3-6 months, $120K-$180K)
  • Build from scratch
  • Integrate with systems
  • Deploy and maintain

After Dec 3: Company needs sales agent

  • Click Salesforce Agentforce button
  • Configure in hours/days
  • Pre-built integrations
  • Managed service

December 4, 2025: Google joins the commoditization

Google Cloud’s partnership with Replit extends push-button capability to coding itself. Replit’s “vibe coding” approach allows users to describe applications in plain language and have AI agents build them – the company’s CEO Amjad Masad explicitly stated they want to make “enterprise vibe-coding a thing” where “anyone in the company can be entrepreneurial,” not just developers.

The shift is fundamental: moving beyond simple “copilots” that suggest code to “agents” that can autonomously debug, refactor, and manage deployment pipelines without human intervention.

Meanwhile, competition accelerates: Anthropic’s Claude Code reached $1B in run-rate revenue (up from $400M in July), and Cursor closed funding at a $29.3B valuation while also hitting $1B in annualized revenue.

What this means: Not only is agent deployment commoditized (Salesforce/AWS), but agent creation itself is being commoditized (Google/Replit). The window for basic AI agent builders closed even faster than we projected.

Why Forward Deployed Engineers Benefit:

Generic agents work for ~70% of use cases. But:

  • Factory floor with legacy equipment? Need FDE
  • Hospital with complex EHR integrations? Need FDE
  • Financial services with compliance requirements? Need FDE
  • Government classified environments? Need FDE

Platform tools handle commodity cases. FDEs handle complex reality. But FDEs are also a sign of the changing marketplace. Plan on 5-10 years before they too are obsolete.

Silent Firing: The New Layoff Strategy

What We’re Seeing (November-December 2025):

We covered 996 work culture and its influence particularly in startup culture. Now we’re seeing another tactic that’s been out there at least since the dot-com era but with an AI twist: Silent Firing with AI.

Companies have used silent firing for decades. Making jobs so miserable people quit rather than being laid off (avoiding severance and unemployment costs). What’s changed is HOW they’re doing it: using AI deployment as the excuse to modify jobs and force resignations.

The Pattern:

Companies don’t announce layoffs. They:

1. Set Impossible Performance Standards

  • Suddenly implement AI-augmented productivity metrics
  • “You’re not meeting the new benchmarks”
  • Performance improvement plans (PIPs) with 2-week timelines
  • Metrics designed for failure

2. Mandate Return-to-Office as Attrition Tool

  • RTO mandates for remote workers
  • Relocation requirements with 30-day deadlines
  • “Voluntary” resignations don’t trigger severance
  • No WARN Act, no unemployment eligibility

3. Job Modification – Removing the Good Parts

  • Strip away creative or interesting work (“AI handles that now”)
  • Leave only the tedious, repetitive, soul-crushing tasks
  • Remove autonomy and decision-making authority
  • Eliminate the aspects that made the job tolerable
  • Example: Designer who once created campaigns now only resizes AI-generated images for different platforms
  • Example: Writer reduced to fact-checking AI output and fixing formatting
  • Make the work so miserable people quit rather than being fired

4. Skill Obsolescence Pressure

  • “Your role now requires AI agent management”
  • No training provided
  • “We’re restructuring around people who adapt”
  • Forced “lateral moves” with pay cuts

5. Compensation Erosion

  • Freeze raises citing “market conditions”
  • Cut bonuses/equity while CEO compensation increases
  • Force “voluntary” moves to lower-paid positions
  • Make staying financially impossible

Why Companies Do This:

Financial:

  • Resignations ≠ layoffs (no severance, no WARN Act, no unemployment)
  • Avoid Challenger Gray statistics (“we didn’t lay anyone off!”)
  • Stock market doesn’t react to “attrition”

Legal:

  • Harder to prove age/disability discrimination
  • Individual departures vs. mass layoff protections
  • Employment-at-will shields companies

PR:

  • No headlines: “Company Forces Out 1,000 Through Impossible Standards”
  • Just: “Company Evolves Culture, Some Choose to Leave”

Connecting the Dots: Salesforce/AWS + Silent Firing

December 2-3, 2025: Salesforce announces Agentforce 2.0, AWS launches AgentCore

Thousands of companies can deploy AI agents instantly. Pre-built: sales agents, service agents, marketing automation.

December 3-15, 2025: Internal conversations at those companies

  • “We can automate Tier 1 customer service with Agentforce”
  • “Do we lay off 50 people or… make them quit?”

January-March 2026 (Prediction):

  • RTO mandates at companies that just bought Agentforce
  • “Performance” metrics tied to AI-augmented productivity
  • Customer service, sales ops, marketing ops roles targeted
  • No Challenger Gray announcement (they resigned!)

The Math:

Thousands of companies × average 20 administrative/support roles automated = Tens of thousands of positions at risk

If even 50% use silent firing vs. layoffs = Thousands of workers forced out without severance/WARN Act protection

Warning Signs Your Company Is Silent Firing:

Your company just announced/adopted:

  • Salesforce Agentforce, Microsoft Copilot, AWS AI services
  • “Digital transformation initiative”
  • “AI-first culture”

Within 30-90 days, watch for:

  • Sudden RTO mandate (if you’re remote)
  • New productivity metrics nobody can explain
  • “Culture fit” performance reviews (subjective, not measurable)
  • Reorganization announcements (“flattening structure”)
  • Training cuts (“self-directed learning” emphasis)

If you see 3+ of these: You’re being silently fired. Take precautions and act accordingly.

What To Do:

1. Document Everything

  • Performance reviews (save copies outside company systems)
  • Emails praising your work
  • Metrics showing you met previous standards
  • Any communications about AI adoption

2. Know Your Rights

  • WARN Act: 60-day notice for mass layoffs (60+ people)
  • Age discrimination: Disproportionate targeting of 40+ protected
  • Disability: ADA protections if accommodations suddenly denied
  • State laws: Some states have additional protections

3. Financial Preparation

  • Assume severance = $0 (they’re forcing resignation)
  • Build 6-month emergency fund if possible
  • Research unemployment eligibility in your state
  • Consider consulting employment attorney ($200-500 consultation)

4. Strategic Response

  • Don’t resign immediately (makes their job easier)
  • Make them fire you (unemployment eligibility)
  • Negotiate exit if offered (severance + references)
  • Consider filing EEOC complaint if discrimination suspected

The Brutal Reality:

None of our Top 4 are immune to this.

  • Forward Deployed Engineers could face impossible deployment timelines
  • Healthcare Coordinators could see AI-augmented productivity metrics
  • Synthetic Data specialists could face sudden “culture fit” evaluations
  • Voice AI implementers could get RTO mandates mid-project

But these roles are LESS vulnerable because:

  • Specialized enough that replacement is costly
  • Client-facing or mission-critical (harder to quietly eliminate)
  • Growing fields (companies need to hire, not shrink)
  • Skills not easily automated (yet)

The workers most at risk:

  • Administrative (our 25/100 risk score)
  • Customer service (being automated right now)
  • Mid-level management (AI handles reporting/coordination)
  • Anyone in a “cost center” vs. “revenue driver”

November Labor Market Reality

Challenger Gray & Christmas Report (December 4, 2025):

November 2025:

  • 71,321 layoffs announced
  • Down from October’s 153,074 (brutal month)
  • But still highest November since 2022
  • Up 24% from November 2024’s ~58,000

2025 Year-to-Date (Through November):

  • 1.17 million job cuts announced
  • 54% increase vs. 2024 YTD
  • Highest total since 2020 pandemic

By Sector (YTD):

  • Technology: 141,159 cuts (17% increase vs 2024)
    • November alone: 12,377 tech cuts
  • Government: 307,638 cuts (DOGE impact)
  • Warehousing: 90,418 cuts (378% increase – automation)
  • Retail: 88,664 cuts (145% increase)

AI-Related Cuts:

  • 54,694 YTD (AI explicitly cited as reason)
  • November: Included in tech sector cuts

Major November Announcements:

  • Verizon: 13,000 job cuts (single largest contributor)

Hiring:

  • 497,151 planned hires YTD (down 35% from 2024)
  • Lowest hiring in 15 years
  • Seasonal hiring: 372,520 (lowest since data began in 2012)

Andy Challenger (Chief Revenue Officer):

“Layoff plans fell last month, certainly a positive sign. That said, job cuts in November have risen above 70,000 only twice since 2008: in 2022 and in 2008.”

Context: Companies historically avoided holiday-season layoffs. That pattern breaking = significant market shift.

ADP November Report (December 3, 2025):

  • Private sector LOST 32,000 jobs
  • Largest monthly drop in 2.5 years
  • vs. expectations of +40,000 gain
  • Small businesses shed 120,000 jobs (worst hit)

The Disconnect:

  • October: 153,074 layoff announcements
  • November: 71,321 layoff announcements
  • But: ADP shows actual NET job LOSS (not just announcements)

Translation: Market worse than Challenger numbers alone suggest.

What This Means:

For Our Top 4: Only positions COUNTER-CYCLICAL or highly protected survive this environment.

  • FDE: Benefits from chaos (1,165% growth continues)
  • Healthcare: Protected by human factors, regulatory barriers
  • Synthetic Data: Specialized, small teams
  • Voice AI: Growing market, but under pressure

For Everyone Else: If you’re in administrative, customer service, mid-level management, or routine professional work, you’re in the November cuts categories.

If You Need Money NOW

Reality Check:

You might be reading this having just been laid off. Or silently fired. Or you see the writing on the wall and need a backup plan immediately.

We created a separate resource for this:

Emergency Income Reality Check

What’s Inside:

  • Medical Billing/Coding reality (3+ years for remote, 10:1 competition, scam warnings)
  • Virtual Assistant reality ($200-400 TOTAL first 3-6 months, offshore competition at $4-12/hour)
  • Extensive scam warnings (fake courses, equipment purchase schemes, check cashing scams)
  • Better alternatives that actually work:
    • Unemployment benefits (apply immediately if eligible)
    • Temp agencies (Kelly Services, Robert Half – W-2 employment, 1-2 week placement)
    • Gig economy (DoorDash, Instacart – cash within days)
    • Retail/food service (yes, seriously – immediate W-2 income while positioning for Top 4)
  • Reddit communities for honest discussion

Why We Don’t Recommend Medical Billing or VA Work:

  • Competition is brutal (10:1 for coding, 500+ proposals on Upwork within hours for VA)
  • Scams are rampant (fake training courses, equipment purchase schemes)
  • Income takes months to materialize (if ever)
  • Fields being automated while you’re trying to break in

Honest Recommendation:

Use temp agencies or gig economy for IMMEDIATE income (days to weeks). Use that breathing room to position for Top 4 (3-12 months). Don’t waste months chasing oversaturated fields.

Read Full Reality Check →

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Methodology & Sources

This Week’s Major Change

We dropped from Top 5 to Top 4 because two opportunities no longer meet our 70/100 threshold following December 2-3, 2025 announcements.

Our ranking methodology hasn’t changed. The market did.

Ranking Methodology

Our career opportunities use weighted criteria across five factors:

1. Market Demand (30%)

  • Current job postings volume
  • Growth trajectory (1-year and 3-year)
  • Industry investment signals
  • Enterprise adoption rates

2. Entry Speed (25%)

  • Time from zero to first income
  • Barrier to entry (education, certification, capital)
  • Available learning resources
  • Community support/mentorship

3. Income Potential (25%)

  • Entry-level salary range
  • Experienced professional ceiling
  • Geographic variation
  • Freelance/consulting rates

4. Future Viability (15%)

  • Automation resistance (5-10 year horizon)
  • Skill transferability
  • Industry stability
  • Regulatory protection

5. Scam/Risk Factor (5%)

  • Prevalence of predatory offers
  • MLM/pyramid scheme presence
  • Equipment purchase requirements
  • Unrealistic income claims

A position must score above 70/100 to make our Top 4 (formerly Top 5).

Positions scoring 60-69 appear in “One to Watch.” Below 60 triggers caution warnings.

Data Sources (This Week)

Labor Market Data:

  • Challenger, Gray & Christmas November 2025 Report (December 4, 2025)
  • ADP November 2025 Report (December 3, 2025)
    • Private sector lost 32,000 jobs
    • Small businesses shed 120,000 jobs
    • Largest monthly drop in 2.5 years

Forward Deployed Engineer (#1):

  • Revelio Labs analysis (October 2025): 1,165% YoY growth
  • Median salary: $173,816 (aggregated data)
  • Palantir careers: $135K-$200K range
  • October 2025: Highest FDE postings ever recorded
  • 35% mention AI Agents, 31% require LLM experience

December 2-3, 2025 Announcements:

  • AWS re:Invent: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore announcements
  • Salesforce: Agentforce 2.0 launch
  • Snowflake + Anthropic: $200M partnership announced (December 3-4)
    • Source: TechCrunch, December 4, 2025
    • 12,600 Snowflake customers
  • Anthropic acquires Bun: Developer tools acquisition (December 3)
  • Combined reach: 24,600+ enterprise customers across platforms

Google + Replit Partnership (December 4, 2025)

  • Multi-year agreement for enterprise AI coding
  • Replit: $10M to $100M ARR in 9 months, 500,000+ enterprise users CNBC
  • Fastest new customer growth among software vendors (Ramp data) CNBC
  • Google: Fastest-growing company for new customers and spending on Ramp platform CNBC
  • Sources: CNBC, TechCrunch (December 4, 2025)

Deloitte + Anthropic Partnership (October 2025):

  • 470,000 employees across 150 countries (announced October 6-7, 2025)
  • Anthropic’s largest enterprise deployment ever
  • 15,000 professionals being certified on Claude
  • Sources: CNBC, TechCrunch, Anthropic press release

Healthcare Patient Care Coordinator (#2):

  • Indeed: 52,000+ patient care coordinator positions (November 2025)
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics: 29% growth projected through 2033
  • BLS median: $48,420 annually

Synthetic Data Creation (#3):

  • Market projections: $1.81B (2024), 31.1% CAGR
  • Gartner: “Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends for 2024” (June 2024)
  • 60% of AI training data will be synthetic by 2025

Voice AI Implementation Specialist (#4):

  • Market.us Voice AI Agents Market Report: $2.4B (2024) → $47.5B (2034), 34.8% CAGR
  • Andreessen Horowitz: “AI Voice Agents 2025 Update” (March 2025)
  • Hospital AI agent adoption projections

AI Compliance Specialist (One to Watch):

  • Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel: Saline Township data center fight (December 2025)
  • EU AI Act: Enforcement timeline and requirements
  • Virginia JLARC Report: Model for state-level AI infrastructure oversight

Transparency Note

We track opportunities, not promote them. When a path shows warning signs (declining demand, saturation, scam prevalence), we report that honestly.

This week, we removed two opportunities from our Top 5 because they no longer meet our standards. That’s not a methodology change. That’s honest assessment of market conditions.

If you see data that contradicts our analysis or have direct experience that should inform our coverage, contact us at contact@theopenrecord.org.

This Week’s Bottom Line:

Only 4 opportunities currently meet our 70/100 threshold. The fact that we can’t confidently recommend a 5th tells you everything about market consolidation speed.

Focus on the Top 4. If you need emergency income, read our Reality Check. Don’t waste time on oversaturated fields being automated while you try to break in.

Previous Edition: Under the Radar – November 28, 2025

Under the Radar is published weekly. This edition publishes Friday, December 5, 2025.

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