A.I.'S Effect on the Work Force Is Showing Up in Wages

marojejian 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/business/ai-raises-hiring...

>Liminal Capital, an investment firm, estimated in August that about a third of jobs appear to be more exposed to substitution than augmentation by A.I. In those occupations, new hires among workers ages 22 to 25 have fallen by a third since 2021, even as firings have barely budged.

Their paper: https://www.liminal-capital.com/documents/liminal-ai-jobs-im...

I'm skeptical of the quality/bias of this, given the source. That said, the story makes sense to me at a high level. Even without the current ML expansion, general trends in automation and maturity & consolidation of the tech sector seemed to be generating a similar effect.

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curuinor 6 hours ago | parent [-]

My whisper network has talked about cutting junior hires in computer-touching 60, 70, 80%

	▲	greymalik 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Where do they plan to get new seniors from when the current crop retires?

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toomuchtodo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Nah, employers are holding wages down due to interest rates and the cost of money. AI is the excuse. Workers have no bargaining power for higher wages without a union, so they are powerless to demand higher wages unless they are in a unique situation. Same reason productivity is going up, rolling layoffs requiring those who remain to do more with less, which increases productivity metrics. Short term profits are being prioritized over on boarding, developing, and training fresh/junior folks.

Michigan Insurance Giant Blames "AI" for Layoffs–But Evidence Points Overseas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49365161 - August 2026

> My investigation points to a far more conventional explanation: Acrisure is shifting work once performed by American employees to lower-cost operations in India, the Philippines, and Colombia.

What's Liminal Capital's portfolio look like? I would like to see if they're talking their book versus objective productivity data.

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verdverm 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Interest rates are not that high, once you move beyond this century's period of near-zero rates which was never sustainable

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toomuchtodo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Interest rates are high by recent historical standards. Something does not need to be sustainable for the transition to be painful.

FRED: Federal Funds Effective Rate (FEDFUNDS) - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fedfunds

How Did Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) Affect Software Developer Jobs? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49730161 - September 2026

What the The end of 0% interest rates means for software engineers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39193331 - January 2024 (169 comments)

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verdverm 4 hours ago | parent [-]

that's exactly the point I'm making, recency bias, it contorts our perceptions

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toomuchtodo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Is your thesis that interest rates have no relation to job openings and hiring?

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verdverm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm simply talking about a number, an adjective you placed with it, and the historical data that would indicate a different adjective is more appropriate

The Fed seems to think the rates are likely lower than they need to be, given the broader market dynamics. Rates interplay with both spending and inflation, inflation being above the long-term target the Fed set. When that is the circumstance, the Fed typically raise rates to reduce inflation.

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toomuchtodo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.tpeconomy.com/how-interest-rates-affect-jobs-loa...

> How Rates Affect Your Job

> Interest rates influence employment through a chain reaction. When rates are high, businesses face higher borrowing costs for expansion, equipment purchases, and working capital. This makes them less likely to hire new workers or invest in growth. Consumers also pull back on big purchases, homes, cars, appliances because loans cost more, reducing demand for the workers who make and sell those products.

> The Federal Reserve cut rates three times in late 2025, reducing its benchmark by 175 basis points, partly because job gains had slowed dramatically. Total employment for 2025 was revised down by 898,000 jobs meaning the labor market was significantly weaker than initially reported. January 2026 brought better news with 130,000 jobs added and unemployment falling slightly to 4.3%, prompting the Fed to pause further cuts.

> This balancing act matters for your job security. If the Fed keeps rates too high for too long, businesses may lay off workers as growth slows. But if the Fed cuts too aggressively, inflation could surge again, eventually forcing painful rate hikes that trigger recessions and mass layoffs.

Lower rates = more jobs. Higher rates = less jobs, or offshoring to cheaper locations when possible.

	▲	verdverm 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		you might dig deeper, the relation is not so simple; smells of contemporary political rhetoric are starting to waft my way you might also consider the dynamics of un-employed, under-employed, and those who have given up, direct unemployment numbers do not tell the whole story how much jobs pay also matters, https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/american-incomes-hit-r..., as does PPI/CPI