A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria

White-collar jobs are going away, decimated by AI. Waves of layoffs in the tech sector (most recently at Coinbase and Meta and Cisco) are said to presage what will soon come for all of us knowledge workers. But before you quit your job as a software developer or financial analyst—or tech journalist—and look to join the plumbers’ union, it’s worth considering today’s economic research on whether artificial intelligence has actually begun to devour white-collar work.

Despite the warning by some of an imminent jobs apocalypse that will destroy much of if not most such work, or the rumblings about a “ permanent underclass ,” there’s scant evidence that AI has yet had any large-scale impact on the US labor market. Analysis of the data gathered for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the unemployment rate for the jobs potentially most affected by AI is actually lower than that for occupations less exposed to the technology. And, critically in the mind of economists, there are no signs that large numbers of people are shifting from jobs threatened by AI to supposedly safer ones, such as those involving mostly manual labor. While the current labor statistics don’t preclude a sudden job upheaval in the coming years, they do throw doubt on the inevitability of the doomsday scenarios and the pace at which they’d unfold. Everyone in the AI community, it seems, is predicting that the technology will soon wipe out jobs, and everyone, it also seems, knows some young wannabe workers who can’t find one. Perhaps we haven’t seen any major disruption in the labor market statistics yet , people often say, but just wait. But maybe we should pay attention to what the data is showing us. And right now, the numbers paint a picture of a relatively stable labor market in which AI disruptions remain largely speculative. “It could be disruptive, but the data is telling us right now that disruption is not yet here, and we have time to plan.” “All of the available evidence to date suggests that AI’s impact on current labor market conditions is likely small right now,” says Erika McEntarfer, a labor economist who headed the BLS until President Trump fired her last fall after a jobs report that displeased the administration. (Not surprisingly, BLS reports of sluggish job growth have continued since her dismissal.) McEntarfer, who is now a fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, says the relatively small impact that AI is having so far on today’s labor market “surprises many people, but it shouldn’t. What we know from history is that it takes time for innovations to work their way through changes in industries and changes in occupations. AI is unlikely to transform labor markets until it first transforms businesses.” McEntarfer points to US Census data showing that only one in five companies are using AI in any business function.

Key points

• Despite the warning by some of an imminent jobs apocalypse that will destroy much of if not most such work, or the rumblings about a “ permanent underclass ,” there’s scant evidence that AI has yet…
• Analysis of the data gathered for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the unemployment rate for the jobs potentially most affected by AI is actually lower than that for occupations l…
• And, critically in the mind of economists, there are no signs that large numbers of people are shifting from jobs threatened by AI to supposedly safer ones, such as those involving mostly manual la…
• While the current labor statistics don’t preclude a sudden job upheaval in the coming years, they do throw doubt on the inevitability of the doomsday scenarios and the pace at which they’d unfold.
• Everyone in the AI community, it seems, is predicting that the technology will soon wipe out jobs, and everyone, it also seems, knows some young wannabe workers who can’t find one.