| Where AI is actually starting to kill jobs |
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| AI is already squeezing some job categories more than others. |
| On Wednesday, Goldman Sachs published a report showing that AI is starting to press the labor markets of major economies, with industries that have a greater exposure to AI automation seeing a slowdown in job growth over the past four years. The research found that job growth in information and communication services has slowed across all major economies since 2022. |
| This includes white collar jobs like call centers, software publishing, management consulting and advertising, all of which have fallen far below historical trends, largely as a result of AI, according to the Goldman Sachs research. |
| For instance, call center employment is down 39% the historical average in the US, 33% down in Canada, and 27% down in Germany. Additionally, entry-level workers are being hit the hardest by AI, especially for those in occupations that are more exposed to AI, such as the ones listed above, the report finds. |
| This is coupled with data that shows that AI adoption is spreading widely across these economies. Goldman’s research found that adoption rates have increased between 15% and 20% in developed markets, with France, the US, the Netherlands and the UK leading. Adoption is on the rise in emerging markets, too, sitting between 10% and 15%. |
| “Overall, our analysis confirms that the conclusions from the US hold globally,” wrote Goldman Sachs’ Sarah Dong, macro research analyst, and Joseph Briggs, economist, in the report. “AI-related hiring headwinds are clearly visible in official and unofficial employment data, but impacts are limited to a narrow set of industries and workers.” |
| Goldman’s data marks the latest addition to a growing pile of evidence that AI is impacting specific segments of the labor market. However, the broader signals are still largely mixed. Some estimates suggest that companies investing in AI have grown their headcount by as much as 10%, with entry-level hiring rising 12%. Other studies estimate that a large percentage of US work hours can already be automated. Further, some research finds that half of those laid off will be rehired for new jobs, and that AI actually increases the scope of work, rather than narrowing it. |
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| Despite the mixed messaging on the efficacy of replacing humans with AI, layoffs are happening either way, especially for white-collar fields. The US made up 82% of the nearly 160,000 tech layoffs in 2026, and almost half of those were tied to companies restructuring around AI and automation, recent data finds. However, the truth is that AI has become a scapegoat for companies that want to trim headcount. In the long run, this is bound to backfire in two ways. For one, the question of AI ROI is ever-present. While layoffs may provide a temporary buffer that appeases stakeholders, those returns won’t last forever. Additionally, blaming layoffs on AI is bound to worsen sentiment around it, both organizationally and publicly, creating resentment among staff that didn’t get laid off and creating friction about internal AI deployments. The bottom line is that companies need to tread very carefully in their messaging about AI and its impact on jobs. |
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