The AI layoff panic that peaked this spring has gone quiet. Goldman Sachs thinks the layoffs are waiting for a recession.
“Concerns of imminent AI-related labor displacement have cooled in recent months after hitting a fever pitch this spring,” Goldman economist Joseph Briggs wrote in a note published Thursday. Then he laid out what may be coming. Under the bank’s forecast that AI eventually lifts productivity by 15% in the U.S. and other developed economies, he found that up to 9% of workers could be “displaced during the AI transition,” with slower hiring weighing on employment by another 3%. That’s roughly one in 11 workers.
