Morgan Stanley economists led by Diego Anzoategui found artificial intelligence is responsible for adding around 15 basis points to the overall unemployment rate and that the effect has risen from 10 basis points last December.
The report attributes the shift to increases in job losses since 2023 in sectors with high AI exposure and identifies young people between 22-27 as the cohort most at risk of displacement.
Those patterns sit alongside recent labour-market signals showing task automation and AI adoption are reconfiguring hiring: SHRM’s recent work notes the share of U.S. wage and salary employment facing high displacement risk fell to 5.1%, while other analyses point to slower hiring for early‑career roles and an uptick in cuts tied to AI.
Goldman Sachs and other researchers have flagged that unemployment among younger workers in tech‑exposed occupations has moved sharply, around almost 3 percentage points in some measures, underscoring that the impact is concentrated by age and job type.
Morgan Stanley’s report is the latest data point in an uneven picture where aggregate employment effects remain modest in headline terms but are already reshaping entry‑level hiring and sectoral demand.
