AI Isn't Killing Jobs—It's Creating Them, Says Top Economist

Apollo Global Management's chief economist Torsten Sløk has a reassuring message for anyone worried about AI taking their job: there's 'zero evidence' of AI-related job losses. In a recent blog post, Sløk cites the ADP National Employment Report, which shows that private companies added nearly 110,000 jobs in April. Instead of replacing workers, companies are hiring AI experts and the AI boom is driving demand for semiconductors, equipment, and energy, boosting employment and inflation.

Sløk argues this is a classic example of Jevons paradox: as technology becomes cheaper and more efficient, it actually increases demand for the resource—in this case, human workers. He previously wrote that "cheaper inputs don't shrink industries. Instead, AI is going to increase both productivity and employment."

This optimistic view is shared by industry leaders like Box CEO Aaron Levie, Dell CEO Michael Dell, and White House AI Czar David Sacks, who all agreed with Sløk's analysis. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon also made a similar argument. An EY survey of 240 financial service CEOs found that about 60% believe AI will maintain or increase headcount in 2026.

However, this clashes with recent layoffs at major companies like Block, Cisco, Atlassian, Cloudflare, Coinbase, IBM, and Snap, which have cited AI as a factor. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticized this trend, calling it a "lazy narrative" to blame AI for job cuts. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman similarly labeled it 'AI washing'.

Despite these contradictions, Sløk remains confident that the AI spending boom is creating more jobs than it eliminates, driven by the need for implementation experts and infrastructure buildout.