Goldman Sachs says AI could eliminate roughly one million US jobs annually as the technology diffuses across corporate America.
In a new Bloomberg interview, Goldman Sachs managing director Matthew Weir affirms the bank’s house call that AI will destroy one million US jobs per year.
While the scale of AI job destruction looks shocking, Weir zooms out to paint a clear picture of the US labor market.
“Now certainly, AI is going to boost productivity, and unfortunately, it is going to displace workers. But as you mentioned, there’s a tremendous amount of new job creation each year.
Bear with me, some numbers here. There are 170 million jobs in the US. Twenty-five to 30 million jobs are either lost or destroyed.”
Weir says the process reflects what economists often describe as “creative destruction,” where technological shifts eliminate certain roles but create new ones elsewhere.
“But on the other side of that, and this is creative destruction, new jobs are created, and there are more new jobs created than jobs destroyed.”
He says the bank believes that the many jobs displaced by AI will ultimately be replaced through new industries and investment.
“So as we put that one million number into context, we think that a lot, if not all of those jobs lost to AI, will be replaced by new jobs.
Think about the investment we’ve seen so far, whether it’s the construction of data centers, think about rising financial market prices, that’s increased net worth, and it’s increased consumer consumption.”
While there will be short-term disruptions in the workforce, Weir says Goldman remains optimistic about the long-term economic impact of AI’s creative destruction.
“And so as we think about the net impact longer term, we’re bullish, and we think that this is something that will be additive, even though over the short term there will be some tough adjustments.”
Recently, a study published in Harvard Business Review found that AI is boosting job demand by 20% in some areas while reducing 13% in others.
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