Goldman Sachs published research on 6 April calculating that AI substitutes 25,000 US jobs per month and creates roughly 9,000 through augmentation, a net loss of 16,000 positions monthly1. Over twelve months that implies approximately 300,000 actual substitutions, against the 107,094 cumulative AI-attributed cuts that Challenger, Gray & Christmas has counted since 2023. The gap is roughly three to one: for every job cut that appears in the public tally, Goldman's model suggests two more disappear without a press release.
Goldman's bottom-up model resolves a contradiction this topic has tracked since Update #3. The Atlanta Fed projected 502,000 AI-attributed cuts for 2026, while the NBER found 90% of firms report zero employment impact. Goldman explains the gap: most displacement runs through attrition, contract non-renewal, and restructured job descriptions rather than announced layoffs. Workers vanish from roles that are never re-posted.
The mechanism falls hardest on entry-level positions. A study of 62 million resumes found AI-adopting firms cut entry-level postings by 15% while senior roles held flat; the Dallas Fed confirmed the losses concentrate among workers under 25 through collapsed job-finding rates, not firing. Fortune and Columbia University research showed 75% of displaced Americans never file for unemployment insurance, meaning three quarters of the newly unemployed are invisible to the claims system policymakers depend on.
