PwC is cutting its entry-level hiring by 32% over three years — from 3,242 junior associates to a projected 2,197 — because AI can now handle the functions these people used to be hired to learn.1 One month before that announcement, IBM said it was tripling its entry-level hiring for the same kinds of roles, in the same economy, under the same technological pressure. "We are tripling our entry-level hiring, and yes, that is for software developers and all these jobs we're being told AI can do," said Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's chief human resources officer.2
Same technology. Same labor market. One company cutting the bottom of the ladder, the other building more rungs. The instinct is to pick a winner, but the disagreement itself is more informative than either decision — because the aggregate data both companies are supposedly responding to says, with remarkable consistency, that AI has barely touched employment at all.
Yale's Budget Lab analyzed Current Population Survey data and found no clear relationship between AI exposure and employment changes through late 2025.3 An NBER study of 6,000 executives found nearly 90% of firms reported AI has had zero impact on employment or productivity over the past three years. "AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data," the researchers noted.4 Brookings found that employment distribution across AI-exposed occupations has remained "remarkably steady" over 33 months, and that radiologists — the profession trotted out at every AI conference since 2016 as evidence of imminent displacement — are "busier and better compensated than ever."5
A Duke University and Federal Reserve survey of 750 CFOs found that fewer than half plan any AI-related job cuts, and the total expected displacement amounts to about 0.4% of the U.S. workforce — roughly 502,000 roles.6 If you are a CFO reading these reports, the rational move is to do whatever you were already inclined to do. The numbers will back you.