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Be wary of the speed at which AI is displacing workers throughout the US economy.
“The thing that we need to take more seriously is not just the potential magnitude of the impact [on jobs from AI], but the speed with which it plays out,” BlackRock deputy head of its portfolio management group Mike Pyle said on a new episode of Yahoo Finance’s Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast (watch above; listen below).
The transition from agriculture to manufacturing services “played out over many decades. And new jobs and new industries rose in the wake of the decline in agricultural employment,” he added.
The speed of AI’s impact on the labor market will be a key determinant of how significant this is from the perspective of workers and the macroeconomy, he explained.
Pyle has spent considerable time in top economic adviser roles in the Biden and Obama eras.
Before rejoining BlackRock in the fall of 2024, Pyle led former President Joe Biden’s international economic policy efforts. He was Biden’s “sherpa,” serving as the lead in key economic negotiations with the G7, G20, and APEC.
His latest warning on AI is well-timed.
The growing impact of AI is showing, from Block (XYZ) canning 40% of its staff to layoffs at Amazon (AMZN), Oracle (ORCL), Coinbase (COIN), Cloudflare (NET), and Meta (META).
With billionaire founder Larry Ellison still pulling the strings, Oracle reportedly laid off up to 30,000 workers across the US, Mexico, and other countries on April 1. Amazon has reportedly slashed 16,000 workers this year as part of its AI efficiency push.
Coinbase is fresh off announcing a 14% reduction in force this month. Cloudflare just cut bait with 20% of its workforce. And Meta is in the process of cutting 10% of its employee count.
Circle (CRCL) co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire recently doubled down on his call that we are just at the start of AI agents reshaping the US workforce.
“I think we’re very early in the impact of AI agents on the conduct of work and how that plays out through labor,” Allaire said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid.
Allaire issued an early warning about two months ago at the Economic Club of New York. He said AI-related job losses would soon pick up the pace and perhaps continue into 2027.
Allaire said Circle is aggressively leaning into AI, and it’s yielding results.
Billionaire Block founder Jack Dorsey said he isn’t done removing management layers at the company and changing the job requirements of a modern-day manager.
