AI Squeezes Pay Growth Without Triggering Mass Layoffs

Since ChatGPT’s November 2022 debut, generative AI has spread through corporate workflows, stoking fears that automation would eliminate white-collar jobs at scale. Research from Apollo Global Management suggests the first broad effect may instead be wage compression: companies can raise output with existing staff, curb demand for additional hires and weaken employees’ leverage in pay negotiations. The finding matters because disruption can erode living standards even when headline employment remains resilient.

Apollo economists Sania Edlich and Torsten Sløk released the study on July 30, 2026, matching actual Claude usage in Anthropic’s Economic Index with U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 321 occupations from 2015 through 2025. After 2023, real wage growth in highly exposed jobs lagged less-exposed occupations by 6.7 percentage points, while the employment effect was not statistically significant. Apollo estimates 5.8 million workers, or 3.7% of the workforce, are exposed, implying $28 billion in lost annual labor income.