OpenAI's founder walks back the job apocalypse; the layoff data disagrees with Altman; 370K cuts projected by year-end; trades hiring hard, four-year degree openings stalling harder

The Man Who Built the Fear of AI Is Now Walking It BackOpenAI CEO Sam Altman said this morning AI boom had produced no “jobs apocalypse.” He was speaking virtually at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia conference in Sydney. He said he had expected more entry-level white-collar jobs to be gone by now. He said his intuitions were “just off.” He said he was “delighted to be wrong.”Altman is the person most responsible for raising the alarm in the first place. His comments land at a specific moment, and that moment matters.On the same day, MIT Technology Review published a piece making a similar argument. Drawing on current Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the piece argues the unemployment rate for AI-exposed occupations is actually lower than for occupations with less AI exposure. Erika McEntarfer, who ran the BLS until the Trump administration fired her after a jobs report it found inconvenient, is quoted saying the evidence suggests AI’s labor market impact is “likely small right now.” She adds that “we have time to plan.”The timing of both statements on the same Tuesday is worth noting. The question worth sitting with is what they leave out.Listen on Apple PodcastsWhat the Numbers Actually ShowAs of May 18, more than 113,000 tech workers had lost jobs across 179 companies, at a pace of 825 layoffs per day since January 1. The companies doing the cutting simultaneously committed roughly $725 billion in capital expenditure this year, a 75% increase over 2025, almost entirely directed at AI data centers and infrastructure. That figure covers Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet alone.TrueUp, which tracks tech sector layoffs, projects the full-year 2026 total could reach 370,000.Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports nearly 50,000 job cuts explicitly linked to AI across all industries in 2026, representing about 17% of the 300,000 total job cuts announced so far this year. These are companies that cited AI as a stated reason for cuts in public documents and press releases.Altman himself acknowledged at the same Sydney conference that some companies are “AI washing,” using AI as a cover story for layoffs that would have happened anyway. That admission cuts both ways. It does suggest AI is blamed for cuts it did not cause. It also suggests companies find the explanation useful enough to use publicly.BUY NOW! Get the NEW Book that exposes the Narratives Tech uses to build its AI Empire. $4.95 flat fee for Kindle, Nook, Tablets, and Mobile. No subscription required.3.5-hr reading time.The aggregate unemployment rate looks stable, as McEntarfer says. But a new CNBC and SurveyMonkey survey finds that 53% of workers and 65% of students believe AI is already taking away entry-level job opportunities. Among tech workers specifically, 37% say AI makes their current job feel less secure. One in ten workers has already switched to a trade job or is actively planning to. An additional 24% of students say they think about making the switch sometimes.The headline numbers and the lived experience are telling different stories.Job postings on Handshake between July 2025 and March 2026 were down 2% compared to the same period the year before and down 12% from pre-pandemic levels. The Class of 2026 is graduating into a market that looks nothing like the one their college counselors described when they enrolled.BUY NOW! Get the book that examines how the AI invasion already happened. You just weren’t invited. $9.95 flat fee for Kindle, Nook, Tablets, and Mobile. No subscription required. 2-hr reading time.The Labor Market Is Reorganizing Around Physical PresenceA Randstad analysis of 50 million job postings finds that demand for robotic technicians grew 107% between 2022 and 2026. HVAC engineering vacancies grew 67%. Industrial automation technician openings grew 51%. These roles require physical presence. AI cannot perform them remotely.The reorganization follows a clear logic. AI absorbs the codifiable, desk-based tasks. It drives demand for the physical infrastructure that runs it. Workers whose skills keep them behind a screen face a suppressed hiring market. Workers whose skills put them in a building, a trench, or a data center floor face genuine labor shortages.The AI/Labor Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.A case in point: AT&T plans to invest $38 billion over the next five years hiring and training blue-collar workers, mostly skilled fiber-network technicians, and its CEO says the company cannot find enough of them. Ford and Nvidia are making similar statements.Altman is correct that the aggregate statistics look stable. That observation describes the average. The average is covering two very different labor markets moving in opposite directions at the same time. Get full access to The AI/Labor Report at ailabor.substack.com/subscribe