Amazon’s decision to cut around 14,000 corporate roles just ahead of its third-quarter earnings announcement is adding fresh fuel to the debate over artificial intelligence’s impact on the US job market and the Federal Reserve’s approach to monetary policy.
The move, part of a broader effort to maximize investments in AI and streamline operations, comes as the central bank faces a data drought due to a prolonged government shutdown, forcing policymakers to watch less centralized private sector signals for clues about the economy’s direction.
The layoffs at Amazon, the nation’s largest private employer, underscore how major technology investments can reshape workforce dynamics.
In a statement announcing the move Tuesday, the company’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, downplayed the human impact, saying it remains committed to hiring in the coming year even as it continues to seek “places we can remove layers, increase ownership” and boost efficiency.
Galetti described the current wave of AI as “the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet,” noting that it is enabling companies to innovate at an unprecedented pace.
For the Federal Reserve, the timing of Amazon’s announcement is notable. With official employment data delayed, the central bank is left to interpret such corporate actions as it weighs future interest-rate decisions.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that employment trends will play a larger role in shaping policy, even as inflation remains elevated. Immediately following its September rate meeting – where policymakers decided to cut the benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point – Powell acknowledged the challenge, saying “it’s not incredibly obvious what to do.”
He noted that AI may be making the job market more difficult for recent college graduates. “It may be that companies or other institutions that have been hiring younger people right out of college are able to use AI more than they had in the past,” Powell said. “That may be part of the story. It’s also part of the story, though, that job creation more broadly has slowed down.”
Other Fed officials have echoed the uncertainty surrounding AI’s effects. Speaking at Semafor's recent World Economy Summit, Governor Stephen Miran – who has artgued for a total cut of 1.25 percentage points over the next two Fed meetings this year – acknoweledged its "potential to really raise the productivity growth rate in the economy."
But he went on to add, “I don’t know exactly how AI is going to shake out," suggesting that any unequivocal predictions about AI’s labor market impact would be “hubristic.”
Fed Governor Christopher Waller has also weighed in, observing that some retailers are already reducing employment in customer support and IT-related roles, often through attrition.
In a speech at DC Fintech Week held mid-October, Waller noted that “AI is influencing recruiting for these firms, with some scaling back hiring because of AI and others adding workers who are proficient in its use.”
While he remains optimistic about AI’s long-term benefits, Waller acknowledged the disruption it brings, stating that policymakers must “let the disruption occur and trust that the long-run benefits will exceed any short-run costs.”
The broader economic implications are complex. On one hand, accelerated job cuts tied to AI could put upward pressure on unemployment, a traditional signal of economic weakness. On the other, productivity gains and increased investment in technology could support corporate profits and drive economic growth.
Recent estimates suggest that AI investments contributed one and three-tenths percentage points to the 3.8% annual growth in second-quarter gross domestic product.
Yet, the rapid pace of AI spending – particularly on data centers and infrastructure – has complicated the Fed’s efforts to control inflation. As Apollo Global’s chief economist Torsten Sløk observed, “the transmission mechanism for monetary policy has been broken for data centers, and Fed hikes have not slowed down the AI boom.”
With the Fed set to unveil its next interest-rate decision tomorrow, Powell's latest take on the jobs market – and how AI could be taking a toll – will certainly be one to watch out for.
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