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US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

bloomberg.com

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Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#191

Post by fn-mote »

nradov wrote: post #125
daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

The overall US economy is less impacted by higher oil prices than ever before. As a net oil exporter now in a way it's actually a positive, although the effects vary by sector.

The fact that the US is a net exporter is irrelevant to the impact of much higher oil and gas prices across the economy.

Also, supply chain shortages will continue to impact us - they are not even beginning to reach our shores.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#192

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #41
daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

This comment is completely divorced from the facts given in the article. The main point is that certain types of jobs like customer service reps, secretaries and sales people are being disproportionately affected. If it was just general fears about the economy overall one would expect a more broad-based impact.

Wait, secretaries still exist? I would have figured in the era of word processors that such jobs would be few to nonexistent.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#193

Post by cdrnsf »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #190
cdrnsf wrote: post #141

Every interaction I have with AI where I previously would’ve interacted with a person is worse. Whether that’s something mundane like scheduling an appointment, use at a doctor’s office, chat support. I imagine it’s cheaper for the company deploying it, but it’s all bad. It lines up with companies being more concerned with investors than actual users and customers though.

I had a car dealership, used an AI agent to set up an appointment. It was so efficient. It's the only reason I asked if it were a real human. It was not. Far better than the norm

They’re ok at routing you to a human when you pester them repeatedly. My parents are in their 60s and loathe dealing with it.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#194

Post by spwa4 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #7

> A group of 18 occupations flagged by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as exposed to AI, accounting for about 10 million jobs, saw a 0.2% drop in employment between May 2024 and May 2025, according to annual data published Friday. That compared with an increase in overall employment of 0.8% over the same period. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2024/article/industry-and-occup... https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.htm…

What everyone probably wants to know:

Affected occupations: procurement clerks, credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks, customer service representatives, nonmedical secretaries and administrative assistants, sales engineers, insurance sales agents, other types of sales representatives, paralegals and legal assistants, translators and interpreters, graphic designers, models, technical writers, broadcast announcers and radio DJs.

Benefitting occupations: computer and information research scientists, data scientists, and software developers. It also says AI/cloud/data growth supports demand for data-related work such as operations research analysts and actuaries.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#195

Post by amazingamazing »

torben-friis wrote: post #110
amazingamazing wrote: post #31

The reality no one ever wants to talk about is that big tech doesn't need as many employees that it has. Anyone who has worked in big tech knows it is true.

Have you read the article? This is about professions like paralegals or translators, not engineers.

I didn't say anything about engineers. Big tech over employs across all professions.

But in any case the primary source mentions tech: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2024/article/industry-and-occup...

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#196

Post by KoolKat23 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #52
artninja1988 wrote: post #14

Has anyone done the math on how many jobs AI has to replace in order to justify current valuations? Would be interesting to see imo

There's no public valuation of any AI company. But by the investment contracts OpenAI announced, if they replaced every white collar job in the world and captured all of their salary, they would have a P/E of ~1/70. (Assuming no costs at all.) You decide what return horizon you are comfortable with and solve the linear equation for it. (But my numbers are from the end of last year, I haven't seen any more recent comp…

Could I please ask what stats you used? Intuition says the valuation is too large and implies replacement, would be interesting to see something backing it up.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#197

Post by Forgeties79 »

dualvariable wrote: post #185
Forgeties79 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet the stock market is reaching ATH, I don't think recession is the accurate word. It did under Biden as well yet nobody had any issues claiming the economy was in terrible shape and that we were entering a potential recession. Which frankly I agreed with! The stock market tells a fraction of the story. Especially because institutional investors now dominate investment in a way they didn’t only a few decades ago.…

Biden inherited COVID, which required a very accommodating policy response, but then had the AI/LLM spending/hiring boom surprise sort of overlap that, which turned out to be highly inflationary, but nobody was predicting that back in 2021. There really was no winning move to play without precise knowledge of future events. And Pandemic-era stimulus started under Trump (including Trump putting his name on the checks)…

Maybe I need to go back and read some more there but my understanding was that the American Rescue Plan, in tandem with some of the stuff that you mentioned that I probably should’ve emphasized more, really drove inflation to new heights and arguably wasn’t necessary as Covid was winding down. Also a ton of spending on top of that.

You’re right though that I should emphasize Trump engaged a lot of the same behaviors. It’s certainly unambiguous that the current situation is entirely his fault.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#198

Post by goalieca »

oliwarner wrote: post #177
roxolotl wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why a political solution is the only way forward. I’m optimistic that people are finally fed up but who knows.

What sort of political solution is there? What intervention could roll this back?

Datacenters.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#199

Post by curioussavage »

nradov wrote: post #163
interstice wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but - if an industry can afford more employees than it has is there a real reason not to have them? Aside from shareholder greed etc.

What is "shareholder greed"? They're not running a charity.

This a ridiculous view. It’s literally everywhere. Wanting to make money is one thing. Complete disregard for how you make it is another.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#200

Post by bdangubic »

dragontamer wrote: post #181
oliwarner wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of political solution is there? What intervention could roll this back?

Taxes. If these companies can afford $trillions, then the government can collect some dues that can fund retraining programs or whatever.

yea, historically in the United States we have been successfully solving all our problems by collecting more taxes. nothing more efficient than giving money to our Government
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