The Economist estimates that AI has created approximately 1 million jobs in the United States

The Economist estimates that AI has created about 1 million new jobs in the United States so far, far exceeding the approximately 200,000 jobs cut due to AI since mid-2023. This conclusion is based on the employment data for August released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on September 4: the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. The unemployment rate for young people aged 20-24 is now close to its lowest level in decades compared to the overall unemployment rate.

Job growth mainly comes from high-skilled positions directly serving AI and blue-collar jobs driven by data center construction. Since 2022, about 730,000 jobs exceeding the trend line have been added for engineers, software developers, mathematicians, and data scientists. The chief economist at Burning Glass Institute estimates that currently about 1% of professional jobs in the U.S. can be classified as AI jobs, with that proportion reaching 4% to 5% in the fields of computer and life sciences. Spending on data center construction has increased by 60% within a year, leading to a rise in demand for electricians, HVAC technicians, and others. Data from Indeed shows that salaries for data center installation and maintenance jobs are about 40% higher than similar positions.

Customer service positions have shrunk by about 10% since January 2023, and administrative assistants have decreased by about 15%. Microsoft and Meta have reduced staff while restructuring their businesses around AI, and companies like Block and Intuit have replaced some manual labor with automation tools. On average, U.S. companies announce about 16,000 layoffs related to AI each month. Economist Noah Smith points out that it is currently difficult to find occupations eliminated by AI in labor data.