Job prospects during the pandemic were grim. After all, companies shuttered their windows, business went online, and recessionary forces put most hiring on ice. Of course, most job hunters at the time felt as though the job market was frozen solid.
But now, job hunters across the country actually feel worse than they did during the peak of the pandemic.
Aside from March’s numbers, the labor market has remained stagnant, buoyed only by health care gains thanks, in part, to America’s rapidly aging population. But Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics chief economist, described the March job numbers as a mirage.
“Aside from the 2020 dip, the hires level has not been this low since 2014, when the labor market was still rebuilding after the Great Recession,” she wrote in a note.
The effects of AI are marginal but not insignificant, especially for entry-level workers.
Recent economic research from Goldman Sachs found the substitution of AI for human labor has reduced monthly payroll growth by roughly 25,000, while AI’s augmentation of labor—the use of AI to enhance worker output—has actually added about 9,000 to monthly payroll growth. That’s a net decline of 16,000 per month on payroll, mainly affecting less experienced workers.
