Goldman Sachs warns AI-fueled layoffs could raise the unemployment rate this year: Chart

Brian Sozzi · Executive Editor

Wed, February 25, 2026 at 12:42 AM GMT+9 3 min read

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AI is coming for the jobs market, Goldman Sachs warned.

“Job losses in AI-affected industries have been visible but moderate,” Goldman Sachs economist Pierfrancesco Mei wrote in a new note on Tuesday. “AI-driven displacement could raise the unemployment rate slightly in 2026, with upside risks from faster adoption and larger displacement.”

Mei’s research found that job growth has slowed and turned negative in a few subindustries where AI is most ready for deployment.

The economist expects the unemployment rate to drift higher to 4.5% by year-end, from its current 4.3%, in part because jobs are being replaced by AI.

But the prediction comes with a warning (see chart below).

“Analysis from our global economics team suggests risks might be skewed towards slightly larger effects. For instance, labor displacement from faster AI adoption could add up to an additional 0.3 percentage points to the unemployment rate in 2026,” Mei said.

You can’t outrun AI. (Source: Goldman Sachs) · Goldman Sachs

The insight from Goldman Sachs arrives as the Great AI Scare of 2026 rips through iconic software stocks from IBM (IBM) to Salesforce (CRM).

On Sunday, analyst group Citrini Research published a piece on how agentic AI could bring widespread economic destruction by 2028. The imagined scenario takes place two years forward, where unemployment has doubled and the total value of the stock market has been cut by one-third.

“AI capabilities improved, companies needed fewer workers, white collar layoffs increased, displaced workers spent less, margin pressure pushed firms to invest more in AI, AI capabilities improved,” the research paper laid out.

This comes as Anthropic said in a new blog post that hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL (common business-oriented language) remain in daily production across finance, airlines, and government. The company argued that AI can now automate analysis tasks that historically made modernization slow and costly. COBOL plays a starring role in critical infrastructure such as payments, financial systems, and cybersecurity.

The market shot first and asked questions later in the wake of both the Citrini and Anthropic news. IBM alone lost 13.5% on Monday, or $31 billion in market value. Cybersecurity stocks like CrowdStrike (CRWD) were routed.

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A new survey out of Harvard Business Review underscored some of the above.

Companies have already made either low to moderate (39%) or large (21%) headcount reductions in anticipation of AI. Another 29% are hiring fewer people than normal in anticipation of future AI.

“So starting jobs in law firms and brokerage houses and investment banks are declining rapidly,” former Medtronic (MDT) CEO Bill George said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid. “So the question is where are young people going to start these days? That’s a big issue. And I think you’re going to see them focusing much more on entrepreneurship, founding companies … I think you just have to do that to stay equal. If you want to get ahead, you figure out how AI can create a whole new business model in the same way the ‘Magnificent Seven’ did 30 years ago.”

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Brian Sozzi_ is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com._

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