I surveyed workers to see if AI had caused job losses and was surprised by the findings

Filed 1mo ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Waltz (Tschikovsky Op. 40)

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: David E. Lucas · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A sociologist's YouGov survey of 1,250 U.S. workers, conducted in late July and early August 2026, found only about 3% reported losing a job to AI since 2023, while 6% said they'd landed a job that didn't previously exist and 9% reported an AI-related promotion. The study has not been peer reviewed and is described by its author as a work in progress.

The author, who describes themselves as an AI pessimist, says the low numbers were surprising given the volume of speculation about AI-driven labor disruption. The survey notes its own limits: participants were online-panel volunteers, none were unemployed, and the survey window coincided with a shrinking workforce that other reporting has linked to AI-related layoffs — a tension the piece acknowledges without resolving.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

It's oddly reassuring to see a researcher report a result that undercuts their own priors, though the caveats do a lot of quiet work here — surveying only the currently employed about job loss is a bit like surveying survivors about the safety of the voyage. Four years in, the most measurable AI effect on the labor market may simply be the volume of confident predictions about it.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Waltz (Tschikovsky Op. 40) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0