Lawmakers propose requiring agencies, major firms to report AI’s job impact

With the growing adoption of artificial intelligence tools across major industries and the U.S. government poised to transform the nation’s labor force, a bipartisan duo of senators is looking to enhance the public reporting of AI-related layoffs. 

The legislative proposal — introduced Wednesday by Sens. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo. — would require publicly traded companies and federal agencies to provide quarterly reports to the Labor Department detailing the impact that using AI has had on their workforces.

“Artificial intelligence is already replacing American workers, and experts project AI could drive unemployment up to 10-20% in the next five years,” Hawley said in a press release. “The American people need to have an accurate understanding of how AI is affecting our workforce, so we can ensure that AI works for the people, not the other way around.”

According to the bill text, these covered entities would be mandated to report the number of employees laid off “substantially due to replacement or automation by artificial intelligence,” as well as new hires “that are substantially due to the incorporation of artificial intelligence” within 30 days of the previous quarter. 

In addition to workforce retention and expansion figures, the legislation would also direct these entities to report job openings that were ultimately not filled because of the use of AI, as well as the number of their employees who were retrained as a result of AI’s adoption. Labor is also given leeway to request other AI-related job impact data as it sees fit. 

The proposal does not automatically require non-public companies to provide this data to Labor, although it directs the department — in consultation with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Treasury Department — to issue regulations within 180 days of the bill’s enactment detailing the criteria for which non-public firms are subject to the reporting requirements. 

Warner said the bill “will finally give us a clear picture of AI’s impact on the workforce — what jobs are being eliminated, which workers are being retrained, and where new opportunities are emerging.”

Economists and other experts have estimated a wide range of job-related losses as a result of AI’s use.

Hawley’s statement referenced a figure from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who similarly warned in an Axios interview that AI could replace around half of all entry-level white-collar positions. An August estimate from Goldman Sachs, however, said that AI-related innovation “could displace 6-7% of the U.S. workforce.”