Tech unemployment in the US climbs for fifth consecutive month to 5.5%, AI blamed for job losses

[midian182]

In brief: After we had some good news about the UK tech jobs market last week, a new report on the US equivalent doesn't paint such as a rosy picture. The unemployment rate among IT professionals rose to 5.5% in May, marking the fifth month in a row that it has exceeded the national US average.

The report, from IT management consulting company Janco, states that the unemployment rate for IT pros in the United States jumped 0.9% from 4.6% in April to 5.5% in May.

As highlighted in another report from Janco in January – and mirrored in the recent data on the UK's job market – most open IT positions in the US right now involve work on large language models. Janco also pointed to roles related to blockchain technology and omnichannel commerce being in high demand.

"IT opportunities for IT pros will be poor except for AI implementations, which focus on improved productivity and staff reductions," Janco wrote.

As for the roles that are suffering most, the report notes that many job losses were concentrated in the communications sector, as well as those related to reporting, monitoring, and support.

IT professionals who will be feeling the pressure most are those with "legacy" skills located in smaller markets such as Nashville and Tulsa. Professionals in bigger locations like New York and Dallas are less likely to be affected.

Unsurprisingly, Janco writes that AI has been responsible for the eradication of many entry-level IT positions, especially those in telecoms. It's also eliminated IT jobs in compliance reporting and management.

"Companies do not have the desire to hire new staff to meet mandated compliance requirements," wrote Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis. "Ergo, they are focusing on AI to automate as many of those tasks as possible, especially for reporting and monitoring."

Generative AI has been automating jobs for several years now, despite repeated claims from execs that the technology is there to augment, not replace, workers. With more companies embracing AI agents – designed to replace humans in many roles by autonomously handling workflow decisions – the situation is expected to worsen.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of buy now, pay later giant Klarna, is so concerned about AI replacing white collar jobs that he believes it will cause a recession. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI firm Anthropic, has a similar view. He said last month that AI could wipe out about half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years, leading to unemployment spikes up to 20%.

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Tech unemployment in the US climbs for fifth consecutive month to 5.5%, AI blamed for job losses

 

[SRB]

Yesterday, Techspot printed an article about how tax law changes decimated tech jobs, and gave past and future layoff numbers. Now, AI is responsible? While I have no doubt that AI may be linked to some losses, between costs involve in any kind of current AI systems, and the need to vet AI answers because of their known inaccuracy and mistakes, I think that like most sectors, jobs are driven first and foremost by profit and stock performance, with dozens of other individual factors for each company, AI (let's be honest, machine learning), is one of those. Is it a driver of job losses? Who actually knows?

But it sound good and grabs headlines, doesn't it?

 

[opckieran]

Yesterday, Techspot printed an article about how tax law changes decimated tech jobs, and gave past and future layoff numbers. Now, AI is responsible? While I have no doubt that AI may be linked to some losses, between costs involve in any kind of current AI systems, and the need to vet AI answers because of their known inaccuracy and mistakes, I think that like most sectors, jobs are driven first and foremost by profit and stock performance, with dozens of other individual factors for each company, AI (let's be honest, machine learning), is one of those. Is it a driver of job losses? Who actually knows?

But it sound good and grabs headlines, doesn't it?

The models that big corporations employ vastly more advanced (capable and/or vetted) and/or specialized than what the general public has access to. So yes, I believe these companies are eager to save as much money as they can as quickly as possible regardless of the consequences (they do this with H1B as well).

Face it, the days of earning a living by sitting behind a mouse and keyboard, or standing at a cash register, or talking on a phone are quickly coming to an end. In fact, most jobs that have a worker stationary with a regular posture can be considered at risk.

 

[Watzupken]

My take, the economy is not well and it’s apparent. So with revenue declining, the only logical way to report profits is to reduce cost drastically. AI causing job loss is mostly a facade to try and conceal the underlying weakness of the economy. There may be some job loss, but given the output of AI generally cannot be used without human verification, hence, I am not convinced it’s the root cause of job losses that’s been reported.

 

[p51d007]

During the "covid crisis" a lot of places OVER HIRED. Now they are getting rid of them in a down economy. Duh!

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

Every generation in the past had job losses due to technology or other influences. The only difference is it's the internet that makes it look horrific because of more information available. Sometimes too much information makes it worse. Prior to the internet people seemed to be more resilient.

Ai is never going away and no regulation will stop it at least not for other Countries. I can just imagine China waiting for companies to return to them because of heavy regulation in that company's Country.

 

[EvilRebar]

From what I've seen so far, we're going to see a massive restructuring of "process" and "data" jobs.

A lot of 40-to-60-year-old people with secure white collar jobs are going to find out that their skills offer little value going forward. No idea where society will end up.