SURGE: AI Boom Is Putting Electricians, Plumbers and Welders to Work Across…

A new estimate finds that artificial intelligence has created roughly 1 million American jobs, compared with about 200,000 AI-attributed layoffs since mid-2023. That is a ratio of about five jobs created for every one lost.

The number lands amid loud warnings about mass unemployment. It challenges the idea that the technology is simply destroying work, at least so far.

The estimate has limits. The figures are not directly comparable, because layoffs are counted from announcements that cite AI, while job creation is estimated from employment trends, AI-specific occupations, and infrastructure hiring. It is a careful estimate, not an official government count.

Layoffs are real. Employers cited AI in 116,175 announced job cuts through August, about 22% of all cuts announced in 2026. Roughly 188,000 AI-attributed announced cuts have been recorded since tracking began in 2023.

The overall labor market has held up. Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Sept. 4.

Much of the job creation is in the trades. Employment in core data-center-related industries has risen by about 320,000 above trend since 2023, driven by demand for electricians, HVAC and plumbing workers, utility builders, and equipment manufacturers.

Engineers, software developers, mathematicians, and data scientists added about 730,000 jobs above the broader trend since 2022, though AI cannot take credit for all of them. Demand is rising for AI engineers, data annotators, engineers who adapt AI for customers, and corporate AI executives.

Separate estimates put new AI-specific jobs at about 640,000 between 2023 and 2025. Jobs that would not exist without AI now make up about 1% of professional jobs, and 4% to 5% in computer and life-sciences fields.

Some jobs once labeled endangered are growing. Paralegal employment is up roughly 11% between 2023 and 2025 and market-research analyst employment is up about 6%, against roughly 2% growth nationally.

Job postings tell a similar story. Data-center postings rose from about two of every 1,000 U.S. job postings in 2023 to six of every 1,000. About a quarter of those openings are for installation and maintenance workers, and hourly installation jobs advertise median pay about 42% higher, roughly $10 more per hour, than comparable jobs elsewhere.

The money behind the buildout is large. Private data-center construction spending reached a $59.3 billion seasonally adjusted annual rate in May, up 23% from a year earlier.

Companies are moving to fill the labor gap. Meta launched a $115 million workforce program in June to train Americans in skilled trades supporting data-center construction, including electricians, plumbers, welders and fiber technicians.

Federal projections point the same direction. The BLS projects utilities will be the fastest-growing major sector from 2025 through 2035, up 9.8%, or 58,800 jobs, with nearly all of it in electric power generation, transmission and distribution. It also projects computing infrastructure, data-processing and web-hosting employment to grow 25.1%, adding about 120,400 jobs.

The gains are not evenly spread. The BLS projects office and administrative-support employment to fall 4% through 2035, a loss of about 752,100 jobs, as automation and generative AI take over repetitive tasks. Microsoft also announced thousands of layoffs as it reorganized during the AI boom.

Hiring is up 25% over last year, one labor analyst noted, so AI is shifting the labor market rather than dismantling it.

Young workers, expected by many to be hit first, look resilient. The gap between the unemployment rate for young adults and the overall rate has narrowed to a decades-long low, which is not what a wave of entry-level job destruction would produce.

The findings drew quick cheers from the pro-growth side. Venture capitalist David Sacks shared the finding with the words “Narrative violation.” Free-market supporters framed the result as a familiar pattern in which new technology creates jobs people could not have imagined a generation earlier.