Some selected passages from this article: insights.som.yale.edu/insights/the-real-job-destruction-from-ai-is-hitting-before-careers-can-start

1/4

In a sweeping global study, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that AI has had little to no impact on employment or productivity in almost 90% of firms over the past three years.

On the surface, the broader labor market also looks fine. Unemployment remains near historic lows, around 4%. But look closer, and the cracks begin to appear: unemployment among recent graduates has climbed to nearly 6%, rising twice as fast as the rest of the workforce since 2022.
We keep asking whether AI will trigger mass layoffs, as if disruption must show up all at once. But that is not how this transition unfolds. Across industries, as Agentic AI scales, the changes are already happening—just quietly.

2/4

Major banks are ... delivering productivity gains of 20% to 60% and reducing turnaround times by roughly 30%.

Telecommunications operators are ... reporting a more than 60% reduction in manual network operations through automated provisioning.

Manufacturers are using multi-agent systems to reduce R&D cycle times by approximately 50% and increase order intake by 40% in early deployments.

Logistics giant C.H. Robinson is handling approximately 29% more Less-Than-Truckload volume while employing 30% fewer employees than in early 2019.
Morgan Stanley estimates that 37% of real estate industry roles, or about 2.2 million U.S. jobs, face agentic-displacement risk.

3/4

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) issued a clear-eyed report suggesting that 10%-15% of existing jobs could be eliminated as soon as 2031 ... A recent Goldman Sachs a***ysis estimates AI is already reducing U.S. employment by roughly 16,000 jobs per month.

A November 2025 study by ... Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab found a 16% decline in early-career employment across the most AI-exposed occupations since late 2022, when OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released.

Nowhere is this clearer than in entry-level software engineering—though the picture depends on whom you ask. Brynjolfsson discovered that employment among developers aged 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% from its late-2022 peak. ... Indeed also paints a stark picture: software development job postings have fallen 53% from the same starting point.

4/4

Similar conflicting patterns are emerging across other technical roles. One respected firm publishes a study forecasting mass firings, while another estimates the net effect is minimal. Given all this noise, the average firm has chosen not to lay off workers on a large scale. Instead, many are silently closing the door to new ones.

A recent McKinsey survey points to the trajectory: while 43% of companies expect AI not to change the size of their workforce, 32% expect AI to decrease their employee base by at least 3% within the next year. Against a U.S. voluntary turnover rate of 13% per year as of 2025, those headcount targets can largely be met by slowing or freezing the replacement of workers who leave of their own accord.

The broader labor market reflects the same pattern. Hiring has slowed to levels last seen in 2010, when unemployment was nearly 10%. Economists have started calling this a “big freeze”: companies are not firing, but they are not hiring either. Employment looks stable. Opportunity is not.

Are maths and theoretical science based careers just doomed?

Long term its uncertain but anybody trying to start a career in those fields right now is royally f***ed

Depends on your research topic

Biology/chemistry by and large should be fine

Comp sci is f***ed

Engineering should be fine maybe some moderate job losses

Its not so dire but science careers are extremely competitive anyways so its not like u can just wake up one day and decide to start a science career it takes years of being a top notch student

Math theoretical physics etc. Were already so niche they dont rly affect the broader job market and ai cant replace those people because the s*** they work on is so advanced most people couldnt comprehend it regardless of ai

The problem with job numbers is they hide the fact that over 50% of young college grads arent even working in the field they got their degree in. They also ignore the huge swath of people who arent looking for employment. Between underemployment and straight up giving up on finding a career thats probably well over 50% of youth.

The biggest problem is when the older people get replaced the youth wont have the experience to handle high responsibility roles due to never being exposed to the upper echelon jobs. We will literally have a world run by incompetent and under educated/trained people. It could actually be quite disasterous in some ways, although im optimistic that some rolling back of industry/economy is necessary for humanity

@op u also got links to the 3 other parts of the article series

Not nearly as interesting but here you go
fortune.com/2026/04/30/agentic-ai-data-infrastructure-readiness-scale

fortune.com/2026/05/02/agentic-ai-governance-framework-banking-healthcare-retail-supply-chain-yale-celi-sonnenfeld

fortune.com/2026/05/07/agentic-ai-customer-proximity-framework-ceos-yale-celi-sonnenfeld

Being an entertainer is going to be the only form of work still viable under an AI ruled society. Charismatic chads win again!

I know you're joking but with the amount of regular ppl I see interacting with AI influencers and AI music... lol

I'm like half joking but yeah I totally expect more of us dumb humans to just start watching AI influencers pretty soon

AI music is awesome

generally speaking no

One thing that is definitely true and will continue to be true is ai is integrating into most if not all aspects of work. Simply avoiding ai is not rly an option

Yup. As someone trying to get into the mid echelon of IT, s*** is a lil bleak tbh.

Bunch of entry level roles with no advancement opportunities (on my 3rd one, I should be bouncing to a Sys Admin position soon tho ). Then you got senior level roles where they expect you to have at least 8 years of experience in specific parts of their tech stack, in addition to other qualifications.

I been ready to level up, but the opportunities are very few and far between

This reminds me I gotta go get a shirt for this second interview

Will never fully be a thing

AI OF Type girls and social media influencers maybe but AI musicians or actors wont be a thing only human musicians using AI and that wont even begun to be accepted for a solid ten to twenty years IMO word to tyga and fenix flexin lol

ai can't serve a mean cocktail and act as a half-assed therapist

well it can do one of those... but overall I think bartender is a safe gig. ppl always wanna drown they sorrows and baby the sorrow economy is booming rn

The question is what is the next step or next phase of this on the humans part lol AI taking the jobs and then using a AI job reviewer thing to not hire you anyway to begin with lol

Yea the system is hella broken smh

Yea anything that involves working with customers shouldnt be automated imo...but theyll try

If ai wasnt making everything so expensive in the tech field rn they would 100% be looking into ai bartenders

Junior employees are f***ed man. I be automating so much s*** at my work, like all the tasks I had when I just started all now take like 20% of the time that they used to. Like I don't think the entry level job I started a few years ago even exists at this point.

F*** it