AI impacted almost 4000 jobs in US during May 2023: Report
AI (artificial intelligence) has been considered as a major reason behind job losses of more than 4000 workers in the US.
Highlights
- Around 417,500 job losses were recorded between January and May of this year
- Layoffs were also linked with business closure
According to a monthly analysis from Challenger, Grey & Christmas, a Chicago-based global outplacement & career transitioning firm, almost 4,000 workers who were laid off in May of this year lost their employment as a result of artificial intelligence (AI). The company claimed that 3,900 layoffs in the US, or about 4.9 percent of all job losses in May, were caused by US companies citing AI.
Notably, investment firm Goldman Sachs stated in a paper published in March 2022 that AI might eventually eliminate 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, affecting approximately one-fifth of all employment.
Worst year after 2009, concerning layoffs
As per the report published on Thursday, there were around 417,500 job losses between January and May of this year, making it the worst five-month start to a year since 2020. Indeed, the onset of Covid resulted in more than 1.4 million losses, and this time the amount of layoffs at the beginning of 2023 was the worst since the 820,000 layoffs that occurred in 2009.
Consumer confidence is down to a six-month low and job openings are flattening. Companies appear to be putting the brakes on hiring in anticipation of a slowdown.
In addition to AI, the research also highlighted the reason for layoffs to be linked with the business closure, which thus resulted in almost 19,600 jobs lost. Economic factors were listed as the cause of roughly 206,300 of the declared job cutbacks that occurred in the first five months of 2023.
IT industry experienced biggest job cuts
With 22,887 announced layoffs in May, the IT industry experienced the biggest amount of job losses this year, bringing the total to 136,831. This represents a significant surge of 2,939 percent compared to the 4,503 cuts reported during the same period of 2022.
Additionally, there has been a noticeable increase in employment losses in the financial sector. According to the research, financial companies have announced a total of 36,937 layoffs as of May, a significant increase of 320 percent over the 8,788 losses announced in the same time of 2022.
