AI Might End Badly — But Here’s Some Short-Term News To Brighten Your Day

A wave of doomsday warnings about artificial intelligence (AI) is overshadowing a short-term bright spot: the technology appears to be creating American jobs even as it eliminates others.

U.S. employers cited AI in 116,175 announced job cuts through August, roughly 22% of all cuts announced in 2026, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Yet amid mounting warnings about AI’s threat to workers and even humanity, The Economist estimated in September that AI has created roughly 1 million American jobs compared with roughly 200,000 AI-attributed layoffs since mid-2023 — a ratio of about five jobs created for every one lost.

The figures are not directly comparable. Challenger tracked announced layoffs in which AI was cited as a reason, while The Economist estimated job creation using employment trends, AI-specific occupations and infrastructure hiring. Challenger has recorded roughly 188,000 announced cuts attributed to AI since it began tracking AI separately in 2023.

The broader labor market has so far avoided mass displacement. Employers added 162,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Sept. 4.

AI-related job creation is also extending beyond the workers constructing the data centers needed to power the technology.

The Economist tracked engineers, software developers, mathematicians and data scientists and estimated those occupations added roughly 730,000 jobs above the broader trend in professional employment since 2022. The outlet cautioned that AI could not be credited with all of those jobs, but pointed to growing demand for AI engineers, data annotators, “forward-deployed” engineers who adapt AI systems for customers and corporate AI executives.

LinkedIn separately estimated roughly 640,000 new AI-specific jobs were created between 2023 and 2025, according to The Economist. Preliminary research from Burning Glass Institute Chief Economist Gad Levanon also estimated that jobs that would not exist without AI now account for roughly 1% of professional jobs in the U.S. and between 4% and 5% of computer and life-sciences occupations.

Some occupations previously considered vulnerable to AI have also continued growing. Employment among paralegals increased roughly 11% between 2023 and 2025, while market-research analyst employment rose about 6%, compared with roughly 2% employment growth nationally over the period, according to The Economist’s analysis.

Data-center job postings more than doubled since 2023, rising from roughly two of every 1,000 U.S. job postings to six of every 1,000, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. About one-quarter of data-center openings were for installation and maintenance workers, while hourly installation jobs at data centers advertised median pay 42% higher — roughly $10 more per hour — than comparable jobs elsewhere.