Will the Next Jobs Report Reveal the Real Cost of AI on Employment?

34 snips

Feb 1, 2026

Guest

Erik Brynjolfsson

Guest

Justin Lahart

Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford digital-economy director studying AI and jobs; Justin Lahart, WSJ economics reporter covering labor and macro trends. They debate AI’s impact on entry-level and junior roles. They preview the upcoming jobs report and a possible benchmark revision. They also weigh Amazon’s AI bets against recent layoffs and the market forces behind the gold rally.

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ANECDOTE

Early Traders' Gold Bet Changed A View

Justin Lahart recalled a 2002 bar conversation with retired Steinhardt traders who were buying gold early.
Their gold bets proved smart as prices rose, teaching him a lesson about market foresight and humility.

INSIGHT

Benchmark Revisions Could Rewrite Job Growth

A benchmark revision will likely produce a large downward revision to employment counts through March of last year.
That could materially change perceptions of past job growth even if monthly headlines look steady.

INSIGHT

Early Job Losses Hit Entry-Level Roles

Erik Brynjolfsson found entry-level jobs (age 22–26) in AI-exposed occupations fell about 13–16% while older workers saw little decline.
These concentrated losses could grow and eventually show up in aggregate labor-market numbers.

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In this week's episode of WSJ’s Take On the Week, co-hosts Telis Demos and Miriam Gottfried are joined by WSJ economics reporter Justin Lahart to discuss why gold has smashed records, and how global instability and the "Sell America" trade has fueled the rally. Next, they look ahead to Amazon’s earnings to see if the e-commerce giant can prove AI investments are boosting the bottom line, as Meta did, or if ongoing layoffs signal deeper issues in the labor market. Justin also previews this week’s jobs report and explains why an upcoming benchmark revision might rewrite our understanding of the past year's job growth.

Then after the break, Telis and Justin are joined by Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, to unpack whether AI is actually killing jobs. Brynjolfsson shares his research into how his research has found a decline in entry-level roles, but argues a productivity boom is imminent. Later, we ask him a fun question written by Google’s Gemini app.

This is WSJ’s Take On the Week where co-hosts Telis Demos, Heard on the Street’s banking and money columnist, and Miriam Gottfried, WSJ’s private equity reporter, cut through the noise and dive into markets, the economy and finance—the big trades, key players and business news ahead.

Have an idea for a future guest or episode? How can we better help you take on the week? We’d love to hear from you. Email the show at takeontheweek@wsj.com.

To watch the video version of this episode, visit our WSJ Podcasts YouTube channel or the video page of WSJ.com