Goldman Sachs Links Business AI Use to Weaker U.S. Hiring

Goldman Sachs linked routine artificial intelligence use in U.S. businesses to weaker employment growth and higher unemployment across nonmanufacturing industries, while its Oct. 26 client note did not establish that AI caused either outcome.

The note described statistically significant relationships between regular business use of AI and the two labor measures. It compared the latest three-month averages with averages from 2015-19. The reported relationships covered U.S. nonmanufacturing industries broadly.

A statistical relationship means the measures moved together in the analysis; it does not show that greater AI use reduced hiring or raised unemployment. The finding also does not specify how results differed among occupations, companies or individual workers.

Goldman said labor markets across developed economies remained solid overall. Its base case is that AI investment will eventually raise productivity and economywide profits, while labor-market disruption may weigh on economic activity in the near term.

A separate Goldman analysis published Sept. 3 examined occupational exposure to AI. It associated a 10% exposure measure with annual U.S. headcount growth 0.1 percentage point lower, with similar findings for France and Canada. The exposure measure concerns occupations and is distinct from the Oct. 26 analysis of industry-level business AI use.

The September analysis also put U.S. call-center employment 39% below trend, compared with 33% in Canada and 27% in Germany. It identified software publishing, management consulting and advertising services among other sectors with employment below trend. Those earlier figures do not establish which industries drove the October relationships.

The industry-level focus follows earlier coverage of U.S. jobs data and AI-related unemployment, which found no clear economywide signal of an AI-driven increase. The October finding describes correlations across nonmanufacturing industries, rather than evidence of a broad displacement wave.