Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes the United States is entering a new phase of industrial expansion, fueled by trillions of dollars in capital expenditures (CapEx) tied to AI and advanced manufacturing.
In an interview at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum, Bessent says the scale of investment underway will reshape the labor market in the years ahead, driving an employment surge that typically follows major industrial buildouts.
His comments come as both private and public sectors pour record sums into AI infrastructure, chip fabrication, and pharmaceutical capacity.
“And what always follows a CapEx boom is an employment boom… It may affect specific jobs, but I can tell you, when you see this level of CapEx and the pharma executives here… the trillions, the tens of trillions of dollars of CapEx, there are going to be plenty of jobs.”
The Treasury chief says early signs of labor strain are already emerging as companies scramble to fill roles in construction, data centers and logistics.
“All I hear is we’re having trouble filling jobs. So could there be some shuffling in the labor force? Sure.”
He also emphasizes that AI skills will define the next phase of hiring.
“Get educated on AI, because having the AI skills and the ability to use them is what’s going to get you hired.”
Earlier this month, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) challenged the doomsday predictions around AI and job loss, finding that only a fraction of the US workforce faces a realistic risk of full automation.
In a study, SHRM concluded that only a few roles are at genuine risk of full automation.
“Perhaps most significantly, the study found only 6% of US employment, or roughly 9.2 million jobs, is simultaneously 50% or more automated and lacking nontechnical barriers to automation displacement. This suggests that, while AI and automation will continue transforming work, complete job displacement may be more limited than many predictions suggest.”
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