Last week, Bloomberg published a report with a rather straightforward headline—"America Starts Seeing Mass Unemployment in AI Risk Positions." Paired with Axios's recent article, "The AI Hate Wave Has Arrived," the overall public sentiment feels a bit off.
But what do the numbers actually say?
What the BLS Data Tells Us
Bloomberg cited data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They identified 18 occupations classified as "high risk for AI," covering about 10 million jobs. They then compared data from May 2024 to May 2025:
- Employment in these positions fell by 0.2%
- Over the same period, overall U.S. employment rose by 0.8%
The gap isn't enormous, but the direction is indeed opposite. Customer service representatives, certain types of secretaries, and sales roles are notably shrinking.
But Is AI Really to Blame?
This gets a bit nuanced.
The comments section was quite heated. Some pointed out that 2024–2025 coincides with the onset of a once-in-a-century trade war in the U.S., where tariffs and oil crises likely had a far greater impact on the economy than AI. Bloomberg's article completely failed to mention the trade war factor—a clear oversight.
Another argument is that tech companies began massive layoffs as early as late 2022, when AI wasn't even taken seriously. Later, when AI became popular, companies found it a convenient excuse: "It's not that I want to fire you—it's that AI has replaced your job." How sanctimonious.
A highly upvoted comment on Hacker News read:
"AI is being used as a convenient fig leaf to cover a blazing economic fire."
Harsh, but not without merit.
On the Other Side: Axios's "AI Hate Wave"
On the same day, Axios released a poll showing that Americans' trust in AI is declining. Most people don't trust AI, nor those who manage it. This is a clear departure from the earlier "AI is the future, how exciting" vibe.
At the University of Arizona's commencement
