LEGACY & INSIGHTS: BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
Workers Likely Displaced by AI Are Taking About a Month Longer to Find Work, Goldman Finds
AI layoffs are starting to look like earlier waves of technology job loss, a new Goldman Sachs note says. Workers likely displaced by AI took about a month longer to find new work and were roughly 10 percentage points more likely to be out of work a year later.
The first AI layoffs are starting to look like the technology layoffs of the past 40 years, according to a Goldman Sachs note published Thursday. Economist Pierfrancesco Mei found that workers displaced from AI-exposed jobs since 2025 took about a month longer to find new work than other displaced workers.
They were also roughly 10 percentage points more likely to be out of work a year after losing their job. Goldman called those effects comparable in size to earlier waves of technological change, and it called the damage from those waves long-lasting.
One caution comes first. No survey asks workers whether AI cost them their job, so Goldman built a score to estimate it. The result estimates who probably lost work to AI. It is not a count.
What Goldman Found About AI Layoffs
Older workers had the harder time. Displaced workers who were 35 and older and likely lost jobs to AI took about five weeks longer than other displaced workers to return to full-time work. For workers under 35, the gap was about three weeks.
Goldman also found differences in what happened next. Younger AI-displaced workers cycled through fewer temporary jobs and were less likely to hold a second job alongside a new full-time one. AI-displaced workers were more likely to leave their old occupation and industry. When employers rehired them, more of them, especially older ones, moved into roles with similar or higher exposure to AI.
Goldman’s earlier research on technology displacement, which uses individual data going back to 1979, found that those workers’ earnings grew more slowly than other displaced workers’ earnings and that they faced a persistently higher chance of another spell of unemployment.
How Goldman Identified Workers Hit by AI Layoffs
Goldman used the Current Population Survey’s Displaced Worker Supplement, which asks people who lost jobs involuntarily in the previous three years what happened next. The sample covered more than 15,000 displaced workers who lost jobs between 2016 and 2025, including newly released data for 2023 through 2025 that Goldman says likely captures the first wave of AI-displaced workers.
Because the survey does not ask about AI, Goldman scored each job loss using the occupation’s AI exposure, the industry’s AI adoption rate and whether the employer cut the position. It treated the top 30 percent as likely AI-displaced. As a check, it found no significant gap between the two groups for job losses before 2023, when AI adoption began to rise.
The data have a limit, too. They cover only people who had a job to lose. That leaves out workers who never got the job in the first place, a gap other research points to.
The Age Gap Shows Up in Government Data Too
The Labor Department’s numbers show the same age gap for all laid-off workers, not only those in AI-exposed jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August that 7.4 million workers lost jobs involuntarily from 2023 through 2025, up from 6.3 million in the prior survey. Among those who had held their jobs at least three years, 72.9 percent of workers ages 25 to 54 were working again by January 2026. The share was 57.3 percent for ages 55 to 64 and 38.6 percent for those 65 and older.
Pay is slipping as well. About 49 percent of long-tenured workers who lost full-time jobs and then regained full-time work were earning as much or more than before, down from about 62 percent in the prior survey, according to Fortune’s account of the figures.
How Common Are AI Layoffs?
Employers cited AI in 120,136 announced job cuts through September, about 21 percent of all cuts and the top reason given, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. A reason an employer cites is not proof that AI caused the job loss, and announced cuts are not the same as completed layoffs.
Other research points in different directions. A Stanford Digital Economy Lab study using ADP payroll data found employment for workers ages 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations about 19 percent below where it would be if it had kept pace with similar workers in less-exposed jobs. The authors say the adjustment appears to come mainly from reduced hiring, not from more separations, and Stanford says it does not see widespread, economy-wide displacement tied to AI. A Yale Budget Lab analysis found no relationship between measures of AI exposure and changes in employment, Fortune reported in February.
The evidence, in other words, does not agree on how many people are losing jobs to AI. Goldman’s note is about what happens to the ones who do.
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What the Note Does Not Show About AI Layoffs
Goldman says it is still too early to assess how the effects differ by education and geography. Its sample includes only displaced workers, so it says nothing about people who kept their jobs. And its AI-displaced group is a statistical estimate, so some workers in it may have lost jobs for other reasons.
The note also does not say that AI will repeat every pattern of earlier waves. In past waves, younger, college-educated and urban workers fared better, with cumulative real earnings losses about half as large over ten years.
What Happens Next After AI Layoffs
The survey Goldman relied on runs every two years, so the next full look at who lost work to AI will take time. In the meantime, Goldman says college students are increasingly choosing majors with lower AI exposure and stronger growth.
The question that remains is whether AI-displaced workers follow the path of earlier waves, with slower earnings growth and repeated spells of unemployment. Goldman’s early answer, from the first wave of data, is that they are on it.
Signal Breakdown
Not every claim about AI layoffs carries the same weight.
Reported by Goldman, Through Fortune
- Finding. Workers likely displaced from AI-exposed jobs since 2025 took about a month longer to find work and were roughly 10 percentage points more likely to be out of work a year later.
- Age. Workers 35 and older took about five weeks longer than other displaced workers; those under 35 about three weeks.
- Method. A score from occupation AI exposure, industry AI adoption and whether the employer cut the position; Goldman treated the top 30 percent as likely AI-displaced.
Context From Other Sources
- BLS. 7.4 million workers lost jobs involuntarily from 2023 through 2025, up from 6.3 million in the prior survey.
- Challenger. Employers cited AI in 120,136 announced cuts through September, about 21 percent of the total.
- Stanford. Employment for ages 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed jobs is about 19 percent below trend, mainly from reduced hiring.
- Yale Budget Lab. Found no relationship between AI exposure and changes in employment.
Not Established
- whether any particular layoff was caused by AI
- how many workers have lost jobs to AI overall
- the long-run earnings effect of the current wave
- how effects differ by education and geography
Sourcing: facts about Goldman’s note, the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, Challenger, Stanford and Yale come from Fortune’s October 30, 2026 report. We did not review Goldman’s note or the underlying surveys.
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