Understanding AI’s Labor Market Impacts: Opportunities for the Department of Labor’s AI Workforce Research Hub

There is deep uncertainty about how significant AI’s workforce effects will be, how quickly they will emerge, and which groups they will affect most. Some economists expect only modest effects on employment in the near term, while several leading AI developers¹ and other economists² warn of the possibility of large-scale labor market impacts within one to five years. This uncertainty creates a dual risk: policymakers may be unprepared for labor‑market disruption, and talent shortages could slow AI adoption and sap U.S. growth.

America’s AI Action Plan recognized this and directed the Department of Labor to establish an AI Workforce Research Hub “to lead a sustained Federal effort to evaluate the impact of AI on the labor market and the experience of the American worker.”³‍

The pending launch of the Hub offers an opportunity to strengthen how policymakers monitor and understand AI’s workforce impacts. This paper proposes several options for the AI Workforce Research Hub to collect data and enable frequent analyses so that policymakers can be agile in planning for, and responding to, the workforce impact of advanced AI. The Hub could consider the following four-part approach to enhance policymaker visibility into the labor market impacts of advanced AI.

‍