A survey of nearly 6,000 senior executives across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 90% of firms report no impact on employment or productivity from AI so far.1 Sixty-nine per cent of the surveyed firms actively use the technology. Nine in ten see nothing happening.
The contradiction sits inside the forecasts. Executives at these firms predict a 0.7% employment decline over the next three years. Employees at the same companies predict a 0.5% increase.2 One group expects cuts. The other expects growth. They work in the same buildings, use the same tools, and hold irreconcilable views of what comes next.
During the 1990s offshoring wave, management planned relocations years before workers learned their roles would move overseas. Approximately 3.4 million US manufacturing jobs were lost between 1995 and 2005. Workers could not prepare because they did not know. The NBER data, spanning four countries with different labour market systems, suggests this gap is structural, not cultural. If executives act on private bearish forecasts without informing staff, displacement will arrive as a shock rather than a managed transition.
