After several years of intense “overheating”, with a record number of job vacancies and a skyrocketing rate of worker resignations, the American labor market has entered a state of apparent “glaciation”, in which companies They seem to have given up looking for work. A scenario which is beginning to result in an increase the unemployment rate, but not because there are layoffs, which also remain at a minimum, but because hiring is decreasing. Yet none of this is hampering GDP growth, a paradox that some analysts see as an indication that businesses that just a year and a half ago were suffering the ravages of the “Great Resignation.” They use artificial intelligence and other technologies to “reduce” the productivity of the workers they have.
One of the few questions that a chatbot dares not answer is when, exactly, the economy and employment will begin to see the tangible effects of artificial intelligence. This doubt has dampened the enthusiasm of many investors who do not doubt the potential of these technologies, but see that there is still a long way to go for it to come to fruition.
The question is simple and at the same time extremely complex: How can we measure the real economic weight of a technology whose potential is so diffuse? Although artificial intelligence has been used long before the pandemic in automating processes in many companies, from work organization to human resources processes, andInterest has skyrocketed due to the arrival of a new generation of algorithms which gave rise to what is known as generative artificial intelligence (GAI). A variation that is also much easier for anyone to use and use in a seemingly endless to-do list.
The success of these tools is part of the problem. AGI is not a final product in itselfas were office suites in the 90s of the last century or industrial robots or smartphones, but it is integrated with other existing ones (such as text or image editors or Internet search engines). This explains why the companies that now benefit the most from its implementation are not the developers, but the manufacturers of the hardware necessary for the IT equipment to have the ability to work with it.
But analysts are beginning to suspect that technological advances could be behind one of the economic mysteries of recent months: the contradictory evolution of the economy and employment in the United States.
Check Okun’s Law
It seems incomprehensible that the data on the American labor market, whose unemployment rate increased by several tenths last year, were not transferred to GDP, which increased by three points over the same period and moves the specter of a recession. It seems that the macroeconomy benefits much more from the Fed’s rate cuts than the real economy and employment. A behavior which also contradicts the correlation between GDP and unemployment defined in the famous “Okun’s law”.‘
In the sea of speculation about the causes of this imbalance, many point to errors in the measurements of one or both parameters. However, a recent analysis of this gap, Neil Irwin And Courtenay Brownof Axios, believes that this disconnect could reflect the fact that “companies are already using AI or other technologies to exploit a better economic performance of existing workers”.
That is to say an improvement in productivity thanks to technology which, even if it is not based on the substitution of workers, that is to say the destruction of jobs, nevertheless makes them more “efficient” . A machine does not replace a human, but it can be used for a human to occupy two positions or even more. This would explain that, even if economic activity continues to grow, which means high demandcompanies can afford to reduce their vacant positions and therefore their hiring. Therefore, Workers think twice before leaving their jobs.
In other words: that technologies such as robotization and AI cannot, today, massively replace humansshould not make us forget that they already allow us to automate many minor tasks. And even if it doesn’t result in layoffs, it would be the difference between hiring or not. Or increase salaries.
At a time when companies and workers are still fighting over wage demands, technology is one element that can tip the scales in favor of the company. We have just seen this with the recent dockers’ strike.. Even though a temporary wage deal was finally reached, pressure from port workers to reduce the burden of automation on jobs remains a major sticking point.
