As the job market cools and companies announce layoffs or drops in hiring tied to artificial intelligence, Americans are asking a familiar but urgent question: Is automation coming for their jobs?
Once confined to routine and administrative tasks, AI can read medical scans, develop software, and take on projects that used to require a human touch. Amazon confirmed Oct. 28 that it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs, citing an announcement from earlier this year that said the company expected to reduce its workforce as it implements generative AI and agents that “should change the way our work is done.”
Leaders at companies like Salesforce have made similar announcements this year. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the trend is something policymakers are watching closely.
“You see a significant number of companies either announcing that they are not going to be doing much hiring, or actually doing layoffs, and much of the time, they’re talking about AI,” Powell said Oct. 29. “We don’t really see it in the initial claims data yet. Now, it’s not a surprise that we don’t. It takes some time for it to get in there.”
It wouldn’t be the first time innovation reshaped the workforce. More than 100 years ago, the United States shifted from an agrarian to an industrial economy. A similarly large transformation, from an industrial to a digital economy, is taking place now, according to Darrell West, a Brookings Institution senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation.
