Critics claim AI is replacing workers — but employment data tells a different story
Made with Midjourney
If you’ve been following the headlines, you’d be forgiven for thinking that AI is eating jobs for breakfast. Just last week, Accenture announced it had cut thousands of positions this year as part of an AI restructuring plan. And major CEOs like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have been warning us about AI automating employees for years. Yet somehow, despite all the doom and gloom, the numbers paint a different picture.
Labor market shrugs off AI fears. Research from Yale Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution finds that nearly three years after ChatGPT’s November 2022 launch, generative AI has yet to cause widespread job losses in the US. The job market, researchers say, remains “a story of continuity over change.” AI adoption hasn’t disrupted employment more than earlier waves like computers or the internet.
Young workers aren’t doomed either. While unemployment for 20–24-year-olds jumped from 4.4% in April to 9.3% in August, researchers say the trend looks cyclical, not tech-driven. Martha Gimbel of Yale says that they cannot find any sign that AI is taking people’s jobs. Molly Kinder of Brookings adds, “We are not in an economy-wide jobs apocalypse right now, it’s mostly stable.”
Too early for victory laps. Three years without an AI job apocalypse is reassuring, but it’s probably wise to save the champagne popping for another day. The technology is still evolving rapidly, and what happens when AI agents actually work as advertised is anyone’s guess. But if history’s any guide, technological disruptions tend to unfold over decades, not months. Cautious optimism might be the best approach for now.