Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping American workplaces, but so far businesses appear far more likely to retrain workers than replace them with machines, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Findings from a survey of businesses in New York and New Jersey, released Tuesday, offer some reassurance amid mounting fears of an AI-driven jobs apocalypse and an already uneasy labor market. Hiring slowed in July, but the U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%.
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The Labor Department is scheduled to release its closely watched August jobs report on Friday.
The New York Fed survey found that 61% of service firms and 51% of manufacturers surveyed are using AI in their business processes, a sharp increase from a year ago.
Still, only 4% of service firms that use AI reported laying off workers because of the technology over the past six months. Another 15% reported hiring fewer workers because of AI. No manufacturers surveyed reported AI-related layoffs.
At the same time, 13% of AI-using service firms said they had hired more workers specifically to help them leverage the technology, partly offsetting the pullback in hiring elsewhere.
“Existing workers are much more likely to be retrained than replaced by AI,” the researchers said.
Among businesses using AI, just over one-third of service firms and more than 20% of manufacturers reported retraining workers. Companies said they were retraining employees across the educational spectrum, although somewhat more so for workers with college degrees.
Most firms reported that their focus was “on helping employees do their current jobs more effectively rather than preparing them for entirely new roles,” the survey found.
For now, the researchers concluded, “AI has been more likely to augment workers than replace them.”
But they cautioned that the technology and applications are rapidly evolving, and these patterns “could shift as adoption matures.”
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