Since early 2022, just before widespread AI-hype, U.S. job-openings as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have fallen from roughly 12.1 million to about 7.7 million, a decline of approximately 36%. Over the same period, the S&P 500’s total return (price plus dividends) is roughly 48%, reflecting strong equity markets.
Conventional wisdom would tell you a booming stock market should create more jobs, not fewer. But it’s hard to ignore that there are larger forces at play, and a potential harbinger of how companies are starting to view their workforces. According to a new report from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), 2026 will be the year that large companies stop treating AI merely as a productivity tool and start wielding it as a strategic lever for workforce restructuring.
