LinkedIn's Blake Lawit, chief global affairs and legal officer of the Microsoft-owned platform, confirmed this week that hiring has declined approximately 20% since 2022. But in an interview at the Semafor World Economy summit, he pushed back against a common assumption: that artificial intelligence is responsible for the slowdown.
Lawit cited LinkedIn's "economic graph"—a dataset spanning over a billion members and capturing real-time labor market trends—as the basis for the company's assessment. "We've looked and, honestly, we haven't seen it," he said when asked whether AI is currently impacting jobs. LinkedIn examined sectors widely expected to face AI disruption, including customer support, administrative roles, and marketing. The analysis revealed no corresponding spike in job losses within those categories.
Instead, Lawit pointed to macroeconomic factors as the primary driver of reduced hiring. Rising interest rates, rather than technological displacement, appear to be restraining employer demand.
LinkedIn's data also shows that entry-level hiring—traditionally the first area to signal broader labor market stress—has not declined disproportionately when compared with mid-career and late-career hiring. This suggests that if AI were actively replacing jobs, the effect would likely be visible first among workers entering the workforce.
However, Lawit acknowledged that future impacts remain possible. He highlighted a significant shift in skill requirements: over recent years, the average job has seen a 25% change in required skills. LinkedIn projects that figure will climb to 70% by 2030. "So, even if you're not changing jobs, your job's changing on you," Lawit noted. This suggests that while jobs may not disappear, the competencies needed to perform them will evolve rapidly.
The findings offer a counterpoint to widespread concerns about AI-driven unemployment, at least in the immediate term. But Lawit's warning about accelerating skill shifts indicates that labor market disruption, when it comes, may take a different form than outright job elimination—workers may instead face pressure to continuously upskill to remain relevant in their roles.