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| LinkedIn attributes the decline primarily to economic factors rather than AI automation. (Image: Unsplash) |
“We’ve looked, because everyone wants to know the answer to this question: Is AI impacting jobs right now? We’ve looked and, honestly, we haven’t seen it,” Lawit said.
The market has been harbouring widespread fears that AI is one of the key reasons behind the displacement of workers and companies slowing down recruitment. However, LinkedIn’s latest internal data suggests otherwise.
Just fresh off the announcements from Snap, LinkedIn, which is one of the world’s favorite professional networking platforms, has released data from a study, revealing that hiring has dropped by approximately 20% since 2022, while employee layoffs keep happening by a factor of thousands. However, LinkedIn attributes the decline primarily to economic factors rather than AI automation.
Blake Lawit, who is LinkedIn’s Chief Global Affairs and Legal Officer, addressed the issue directly during an interview at the Semafor World Economy summit, stressing that the company’s vast Economic Graph, which tracks over one billion members, companies, jobs, and skills in real time, shows no clear evidence of AI significantly impacting hiring so far.
“We’ve looked, because everyone wants to know the answer to this question: Is AI impacting jobs right now? We’ve looked and, honestly, we haven’t seen it,” Lawit said.
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It’s the economic factors, not AI
Instead of blaming AI, Lawit pointed to rising interest rates and broader economic uncertainty as the key drivers behind the hiring slowdown. He stated that the decline has been relatively uniform across sectors, with no outsized drops in areas most vulnerable to AI disruption, such as customer support, administrative roles, or marketing.“Yes, hiring’s down, but not down more,” he added, referring to the expected sharper decline if AI were the primary culprit.
The data also shows that entry-level hiring for recent college graduates has not fallen disproportionately compared to mid- and late-career professionals, thus countering some popular narratives about AI eliminating starter jobs.
Skills transformation key to future growth
Although Lawit reassured that AI has not yet triggered major job losses, he was quick to caution people about the rapid pace of the change AI brings to the forefront. According to LinkedIn’s analysis, the skills required for the average job have already shifted by 25% over the past few years. With the continued rise of AI, the company predicts that this figure will reach a staggering 70% by 2030.“So, even if you’re not changing jobs, your job’s changing on you,” Lawit warned.
This anticipated skills revolution suggests that while large-scale displacement may not be happening today, workers and companies must prepare for significant transformations in job requirements in the coming years.
Lawit stopped short of ruling out future impacts, stating, “Doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen in the future, but not yet.”
But companies keep AI investment as one reason for restructuring
Many companies continue to openly cite heavy AI investments as a primary justification for workforce restructuring and layoffs. Lately, Snap announced it is cutting around 1,000 jobs (16% of its workforce) explicitly due to “rapid advancements in artificial intelligence” that allow smaller teams to handle more work.ALSO READ
Similarly, Meta is planning sweeping cuts of up to 20% of its staff to offset massive AI spending, while Amazon let go of 16,000 corporate roles. Oracle eliminated thousands amid heavy AI infrastructure investments last month, and Atlassian cut 10% of its workforce to self-fund further AI development.
Hence, this trend has only reinforced the perception that AI is driving corporate downsizing, even as broader labour market data from a firm like LinkedIn’s shows economic factors still dominating current hiring declines.
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