AI's real threat to the job market isn't job loss, it's lower paychecks, new research says
A new report from Apollo Global Management suggests that AI's primary impact on the labor market is not job displacement, but rather a suppression of wage growth. The study found that occupations with high AI exposure experienced significant declines in real wage growth, particularly among lower-income service workers.
Why it matters
This research shifts the focus of the AI debate from total unemployment to income inequality, suggesting that AI may exacerbate existing economic disparities.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images There's one consequence from AI people may be overlooking: that the tech could eat into worker pay . Roles with a high exposure to AI have seen sharp declines in wage growth in recent years, Apollo said. In a new paper, the asset manager laid out the jobs that have seen the steepest wage decreases. AI isn't coming for your job — it's coming for your paycheck. That's the conclusion of a new white paper from Apollo Global Management, which measured the observed impacts of AI adoption on wage and employment across various jobs in the US. The paper, which tracked wage and employment data for 321 occupations, found that jobs with the highest exposure to AI saw an average 6.7% decline in real wage growth after 2023, around the time ChatGPT first went viral.
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