The United States economy shed tens of thousands of jobs at major technology companies this year, and a former top economic adviser to two presidents says the pace of that change is what should concern policymakers most.
Mike Pyle, BlackRock's deputy head of its portfolio management group, made the case on Yahoo Finance's Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast. Pyle previously led international economic policy for President Joe Biden and served as his lead negotiator with the G7, G20, and APEC before returning to BlackRock in the fall of 2024.
"The thing that we need to take more seriously is not just the potential magnitude of the impact [on jobs from AI], but the speed with which it plays out," Pyle said.
He drew a comparison to past economic transitions. The shift from agriculture to manufacturing "played out over many decades. And new jobs and new industries rose in the wake of the decline in agricultural employment," he said. His concern is that artificial intelligence may not allow for the same gradual adjustment.
The warning comes as layoffs tied to AI efficiency efforts have been announced across the technology sector. Oracle reportedly laid off up to 30,000 workers across the U.S., Mexico, and other countries on April 1. Amazon has reportedly cut 16,000 workers this year as part of its own AI efficiency push. Coinbase announced a 14% reduction in force this month. Cloudflare cut 20% of its workforce. Meta is in the process of cutting 10% of its employee count. Block cut 40% of its staff.
Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire has also sounded alarms on the same trend. "I think we're very early in the impact of AI agents on the conduct of work and how that plays out through labor," Allaire said on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid. He issued an earlier warning at the Economic Club of New York roughly two months ago, saying AI-related job losses would pick up pace and potentially continue into 2027.
Allaire said Circle is aggressively leaning into AI and seeing results from doing so. Block founder Jack Dorsey said separately that he is not finished removing management layers at his company and is rethinking what the role of a modern manager should look like.
Pyle's position at BlackRock gives his commentary additional weight. The firm manages trillions of dollars in assets and its portfolio management team watches labor market trends closely for signals about monetary policy and consumer spending. His view is that the speed of AI's impact on the labor market will be a key determinant of how significant the disruption becomes for workers and the broader macroeconomy.
No federal legislation specifically addressing AI-driven layoffs is currently in place, and the pace of corporate announcements suggests the issue will continue to grow before any regulatory framework catches up.
