Employment Services NAICS 5613

May 19, 2026 - American Job Market Pessimism Grows

• Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about the job market despite low unemployment and other select economic indicators, raising concerns that fear of layoffs and weak hiring could slow the broader economy. Consumer sentiment fell to a record low in April as workers worried about inflation, rising gas prices, tariff uncertainty, and high-profile layoffs at major companies including Nike and Meta. Surveys from the University of Michigan, New York Fed, and LinkedIn all show mounting anxiety over employment prospects, with 64% of Americans expecting unemployment to rise within a year - a level historically associated with recessions. Hiring has slowed sharply, leaving job seekers struggling to find work and fueling concerns among employed workers in industries such as technology that are grappling with AI-driven worker displacement. Economists warn the growing lack of workforce confidence could reduce consumer spending, delay business hiring, and become a signal of a further weakening labor market.
• US companies are increasingly embracing large-scale layoffs, with firms like Snap, Block, and Amazon recently cutting anywhere from 16% to 40% of their workforces in single sweeping moves. Rather than being seen as a sign of trouble, these mass cuts are now rewarded by investors with stock bumps and praise. Block's CFO noted that executives from other companies have been reaching out to replicate their playbook. The driving forces are a mix of pandemic-era overhiring corrections, the soaring costs of building AI, and a broader shift in how leadership views large teams - increasingly as a drag on performance rather than an asset. While AI is often cited as justification for job cuts, most executives acknowledge it isn't directly replacing workers yet. The human toll is real: white-collar unemployment is rising, with college-educated workers under 35 now facing higher joblessness than those with only two-year degrees.

• AI will reshape 50%-55% of US jobs over the next three years, according to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), fundamentally changing what workers do even when their positions survive. Over a five-year horizon, 10%-15% of jobs could be eliminated entirely. BCG examined tasks and government labor data associated with 1,500 occupations and found the effects will vary significantly by industry. Software engineering demand may actually increase as AI drives down costs and clears massive project backlogs, while call center jobs face widespread elimination since lower costs won't generate proportionally more customer interactions. Jobs requiring physical presence or interpersonal skills (plumbers, therapists, and similar roles) will see little disruption. Rather than defaulting to layoffs, experts urge businesses to invest in re-skilling workers and redeploying them to areas less exposed to automation. New job categories will likely emerge from the AI era, though what they might look like remains unclear.
• A new MetLife report finds that while 83% of HR decision-makers say AI helps employees work faster and 80% say it has become part of everyday tasks, 67% report it is also creating friction and mistrust between employers and employees. Workers' concerns include ethical and safety risks like bias and misinformation (61%), fear of job obsolescence (59%), and feeling pressure to compete with AI directly (24%). MetLife's head of US group benefits cited worry about job losses and the need to adapt as key drivers of workplace tension. Experts say alleviating these concerns requires not just technology deployment, but also change management and workforce upskilling. A separate BetterUp/Stanford study adds further complexity, finding that 53% of workers admit to submitting "workslop" - low-quality, AI-generated content - while 40% reported receiving such content in the previous month, further undermining collaboration and trust.