President Donald Trump’s efforts to foster artificial intelligence growth could exacerbate negative labor market trends.
Trump embraced AI on the 2024 campaign trail, leading Elon Musk and other technocrats to steadily pump millions into his reelection effort. Since entering office in January, Trump has announced a number of AI-focused initiatives, including the Stargate Project, a private joint venture that would see $500 billion put toward the construction of 20 AI datacenters across the country by 2029.
Recommended Stories
- Trump to make decision on Chicago crime crackdown in 'next day or two'
- Trump remains optimistic about reaching a peace deal in Ukraine war: 'We're going to get it done'
- 'We're not going to war' with Chicago, Trump says after meme post
However, despite the clear boost that growing the emergent sector would provide for the American economy, or at least for American technology companies, AI is already throwing speed bumps on Trump’s road to a post-COVID, post-Biden comeback.
Research published in August by Stanford University found that, since 2022, employment for entry-level workers in sectors most reliant on AI, like customer service, accounting, and tech development, shrank by 13%.
Furthermore, Goldman Sachs also warned last month that, though AI will boost efficiency among employed workers, the technology’s continued expansion across all sectors could move total employment by as much as 2.5%.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) spoke at length about the dangers AI poses to the labor market during a Thursday speech at NatCon in Washington, D.C.
“The problem with the AI revolution, as it’s currently known, is that it only entrenches the power of the people who are already the most powerful people in the world,” he stated, claiming that the efficiency potential AI could provide to some will simultaneously put “millions of Americans out of work.”
“That’s not a conspiracy theory, by the way, that’s what the tech titans openly tell us. One CEO recently predicted half of entry level white collar jobs will be gone in the next five years,” Hawley continued, adding that the losses would be even greater in the transportation and service sectors.
“Now, the AI enthusiasts, I’m sure you’ve heard them, they’ll rush to say, oh, all of this will be made up in a moment. We’ll do so much better. We’ll replace all of these four pathetic jobs with something new and better and bigger,” he mocked. “My only question is, where exactly are the jobs supposed to come from? What are they going to be, sweeping floors at data centers, mining for rare earths and minerals, and Greenland? I mean, what exactly is the future that they’re promising?”
Regardless of the AI debate itself, Trump received a particularly dire sign that the labor market’s post-COVID resiliency might be running its course. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August jobs report, published Friday morning, found that the economy added just 22,000 jobs last month, roughly 50,000 below projections, with unemployment clocking in at 4.3%. That followed another underwhelming jobs report last month for July, leading the president to sack the career BLS commissioner and replace him with a Trump loyalist. Meanwhile, revisions to the June employment report published on Friday found the economy shedding jobs for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses in 2020.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner that the August jobs report shows that Trump’s economic “continues to be held back by Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell’s foolish refusal to admit that President Trump is right about everything” and that “it’s time for the Fed to finally do the right thing on behalf of the American people and cut the rates.”
“Since President Trump took office, he has created more than half a million good-paying jobs in the private sector that have ALL gone to American-born workers,” she said in a statement. “President Trump is reshoring our manufacturing industry, and the biggest companies in the world are making unprecedented investments to build here in America. Clearly, President Trump is implementing the most aggressive pro-growth agenda in our country’s history.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai added, “President Trump’s push to cement American dominance in AI, cryptocurrency, semiconductors, and other cutting-edge technologies has yielded trillions in historic investment commitments for advanced manufacturing and data centers that will create thousands of jobs.”
However, one senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak freely on the matter, told the Washington Examiner that the labor “dangers” surrounding AI would still exist, even if Trump weren’t pursuing growth in the industry.
“Look, guys like Tucker [Carlson] have been talking about this for years. Robots are going to come and take all the trucking jobs, all the fast food jobs, all of the assembly line jobs,” the official stated. “The only way to avoid a complete blue-collar replacement is to lean into innovation. The government has to smarten up here, which we are doing, and find ways to both regulate and grow the industry in ways that doesn’t totally upend the apple cart. Because, news flash — the robots are here. Wouldn’t you rather we develop them, than say China?”
Despite the warning signs, the president himself has continued to promote AI and the executives fueling its rapid growth.
He and First Lady Melania Trump hosted several tech bosses at the White House for a private dinner on Thursday night, following a roundtable discussion earlier in the day.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who recently warned that AI might be operating in an economic bubble, thanked the president for his efforts to “make our companies and our entire country so successful.”
“The investment that’s happening here, the ability to get the power of the industry back in the United States, is going to set us up for a long period of great success leading the world,” he stated. “And I don’t think that would be happening without your leadership.”
At that same dinner, Trump sought to downplay the, at the time, yet-to-be-published August jobs report.
BIDEN’S TEAM WANTED HIM TO SIGN PARDONS BY HAND, NOT AUTOPEN
“They come out tomorrow, but the real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now on,” he told reporters. “I think you’ll see job numbers that are going to be absolutely incredible.”