Senate proposal calls for AI-related job loss reporting

Diving overview:

US Senator JOsh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Mark Warner (Virginia) submitted a draft bill Effective Wednesday, major companies will be required to report AI-related layoffs to the U.S. Department of Labor on a quarterly basis.
The AI-Related Employment Impact Clarification Act (which has not yet been introduced) would require publicly traded companies and federal agencies to disclose the number of employees fired primarily due to AI within their companies. The last 30 days of each quarter. The bill’s goal is to ensure that AI “facilitates opportunity, not leaves workers behind.”
“With this bipartisan bill, we will finally get a clear picture of how AI will impact the workforce: which jobs will be eliminated, which workers will be retrained, and where new opportunities will be created.” Warner said in a press release.

Dive Insight:

The proposed AI bill comes as the industry grapples with the labor implications of ongoing AI adoption.

The law targets publicly traded companies and federal government agencies, but could also include privately held companies, depending on the nature of the company. According to the text of the bill, the size of the workforce and annual income.

“This is essentially a scarlet letter,” he said. Rob Atkinson, chairman of the Information Technology Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit public policy think tank; “If a company came out and said, ‘So many jobs have been lost because of AI,’ they would be attacked.”

More than 17,000 job cuts were made The first nine months of the year are directly tied to AI, According to October Report from Challenger, Gray, Christmas. month of september 7,000 jobs were cut in AI-related areas alone. The report said:.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff directly attributable to The company has significantly reduced its customer service staff. – From 9,000 to approximately 5,000 – From implementing an AI agent to take over customer conversations.

Amazon 14,000 jobs cut in october Adopt a leaner structure as you move towards an AI-driven strategy. The restructuring will help the company invest in its “biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.” Beth Galetti, SVP of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, I wrote it in a blog post.

Atkinson said the proposed federal bill could create regulatory burdens that would force companies to make difficult decisions, such as defining the causes of certain unemployment cases.

“They have to calculate everything and then make a decision,” Atkinson said. Atkinson added that companies may need to determine whether job losses are fully or partially related to AI.

The bill’s language indicates that lawmakers want to better understand the impact of AI on the workforce, rather than just shouting about AI-related job losses. Ara Valente, Forrester Principal Analyst Said.

In addition to quarterly reports, Ministry of Labor He will be responsible for producing a more detailed bi-quarterly report analyzing the net impact of AI-related work impact reports submitted by companies.

The bill would also require companies to detail the number of employees hired with AI, the number of employees retrained with AI, and the number of roles no longer filled with AI. According to the proposal.

“We also have to report on the new jobs created by AI,” Valente said.

The bill is a “great step” in recognizing that AI is having a significant impact on the workforce, leading to job losses in some cases and creating new ones in others. Valente Said.

By the time AI is introduced, Valente said he hopes the nine-page bill will provide companies with more details on how to define job loss and creation due to AI.

“This is definitely a step in the right direction.” Valente Said. “AI regulation can be politicized, but the impact of AI is apolitical. This gives us a foundation from which we can study AI in a different way as we begin to develop policy around AI, whether it’s state, industry, or even federal policy in some cases.”