Goldman Sachs: AI Is Erasing 16,000 U.S. Jobs Per Month — And Gen Z Is Taking the Brunt

# Goldman Sachs: AI Is Erasing 16,000 U.S. Jobs Per Month — And Gen Z Is Taking the Brunt

> **Quick answer:** Goldman Sachs economist Elsie Peng analyzed real U.S. payroll records and found AI is eliminating a net 16,000 American jobs every month — 25,000 destroyed, 9,000 created. Gen Z workers concentrated in routine white-collar roles are hit hardest, with an unemployment rate of 8.3%, double the national average of 4.2%. The data is not a projection — it's what has already happened.

For years, the debate over AI and jobs was fought with models, surveys, and speculation. Goldman Sachs just ended that debate — at least for the last twelve months. Using actual payroll records rather than forecasts, Goldman economist Elsie Peng published a U.S. Daily Note in April 2026 showing that AI is erasing a net 16,000 American jobs every single month. And the generation absorbing the most damage is the one that grew up on smartphones, learned to code in school, and arrived at the workforce gates calling itself "AI-native."

## The Goldman Sachs Payroll Analysis: What the Data Actually Shows

Peng's research is notable for what it is built on: payroll records, not projections. That distinction matters enormously. Most prior estimates of AI's labor-market impact relied on occupation-level exposure scores — essentially, guesses about how automatable a role might be. Peng combined AI exposure scores with a complementarity index developed by IMF economists to separate AI's two competing effects on employment.

**Substitution** — when AI replaces human workers outright, handling tasks those workers previously performed — is destroying approximately 25,000 gross jobs per month.