# To Goldman Sachs, on the 15 Million Jobs Sacrificed to AI

> Dear Joseph Briggs, global chief economist at Goldman Sachs Research, I am writing to you after listening to your remarks on your

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Open letter
- Published: 2026-07-06
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/a-goldman-sachs-sur-les-15-millions-d-emplois-sacrifies-a-l-ia

## Key takeaways

- Briggs said on Goldman's Exchanges podcast that AI adoption could displace roughly 9 percent of the American workforce, close to 15 million workers, over the next decade.
- The letter cites June 2026 data showing only 57,000 US jobs added, well below expectations, and notes that AI is increasingly cited by employers as a reason for layoffs.
- Marquette argues that Goldman profits both from advising automating companies and financing AI firms while publishing on the social consequences, and that markets reward AI-linked layoffs.
- He says the West must keep racing China but should pair that with retraining, safety nets, and attention to young graduates and entry-level roles.
- He calls for greater corporate transparency on AI-related layoffs, noting no federal law requires employers to disclose AI's role.

## Introduction: a letter to those who count **jobs** like numbers

### **Mr. Briggs**, I read your projections

Dear **Joseph Briggs**, global chief economist at **Goldman Sachs Research**, I am writing to you after listening to your remarks on your bank's **Exchanges** podcast. You announced there that the adoption of **artificial intelligence** could displace roughly **9 percent** of the American workforce, close to **15 million workers**, over the next decade. You said it with the methodical calm of an economist who handles **statistics** the way others handle a hammer.

I am not writing to accuse you of lying. Your numbers, as far as I can judge, are serious, documented, and consistent with what other **firms** are also observing. But I am writing because there is a dizzying distance between a projection line on a chart and the lives of **fifteen million** people who will have to reinvent how they earn a living.

### Why I chose to address you directly

I could have written a cold, detached analysis of this issue. I chose the open letter instead, because this subject deserves a direct, almost personal address to those who shape the dominant economic narrative on **artificial intelligence**. You are not solely responsible for this transformation, of course. But your voice, the voice of **Goldman Sachs**, carries real weight in how **markets**, governments and **businesses** anticipate this wave.

According to your own widely circulated **report** from early July 2026, the **technology**, **consulting** and **graphic design** sectors are particularly exposed, even as June data show a gain of only **57,000 jobs** in the **United States**, well below economists' expectations.

*I'll tell you frankly: hearing an economist of your caliber talk about 15 million **workers** displaced with the same serenity used to announce a GDP revision makes me uneasy. Numbers don't bleed, but the people who lose their jobs do.*

## What your numbers don't say on the ground

### A hiring slowdown that already precedes the wave

**Mr. Briggs**, you know better than anyone that the June 2026 American jobs numbers already tell a troubling story. Only **57,000 jobs created**, a figure well below market expectations, while several major tech **companies** have explicitly tied their waves of **layoffs** to the adoption of **artificial intelligence** in recent months.

This slowdown is not an isolated coincidence. It fits a trend documented for months by **firms** specializing in layoff tracking, which find that **AI** has become the most frequently cited reason American employers give for workforce cuts, month after month since the start of 2026.

### The gap between the reassuring narrative and lived reality

Your official message remains optimistic in the long run: you repeat that economic history shows job destruction from a new **technology** is always followed, eventually, by the creation of new **jobs**. It's a classic argument, a respectable one, and probably partly true. But between the moment a worker loses their job and the moment a new position appears elsewhere in the **economy**, there is a life to get through, bills to pay, a family to feed.

You describe a shock comparable to the one in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Except that shock played out over an entire decade, with very real human hardship that macroeconomic **statistics** never truly captured in their methodological coldness.

*I believe it is precisely this gap between the statistician's long horizon and the short horizon of bills due that makes your message so hard to swallow for a tech worker who just received their layoff notice.*

## **Wall Street's** responsibility in this acceleration

### **Markets** applaud, **workers** pay the price

Let's say it plainly: every announcement of **layoffs** linked to **artificial intelligence** is generally welcomed by financial **markets** as a sign of budget discipline and operational efficiency. Shares of several major tech **companies** have climbed after announcing workforce cuts justified by **AI** adoption, a dynamic that your own institution, **Goldman Sachs**, helps fuel through its **investment** recommendations.

This mechanism creates a perverse incentive: the more a company lays off in the name of **artificial intelligence**, the more it is rewarded by **markets**, regardless of the technology's actual impact on its real **productivity**. Some **analysts** even describe a phenomenon of **AI washing**, where **layoffs** driven by ordinary financial considerations are dressed up as technology decisions to please investors.

### A **bank** profiting from both sides of the equation

**Goldman Sachs** **advises** the companies that automate, finances the fundraising rounds of **artificial intelligence** giants, and at the same time publishes **reports** on the social consequences of that very **automation**. That is, at the very least, a comfortable position, **Mr. Briggs** — observing and profiting from the same transformation simultaneously.

I am not saying this is illegitimate in itself. It is the very model of investment **banking**. But it deserves to be named clearly, rather than hidden behind the neutral, reassuring vocabulary of long-term economic projections.

*I think **Wall Street** has a direct interest in minimizing the social pain of this **transition**, since every wave of AI-linked **layoffs** drives up the stock prices it recommends to its wealthy clients.*

## What the **West** must understand about this technological race

### Global competition leaves no room for waiting it out

I am not naive, **Mr. Briggs**. I know the **West** cannot simply slow its race toward **artificial intelligence** out of social caution, while **China** invests massively in its own technological capabilities to dominate this strategic sector for decades to come. Slowing down unilaterally would mean ceding a major strategic advantage to rivals who show no such social scruples.

This geopolitical reality makes the debate more complex than a simple choice between progress and protecting **workers**. The **West** must run this technological race, or risk being overtaken by powers that share neither its democratic values nor its concern, however imperfect, for the social protection of its citizens.

### Running the race without abandoning those who stumble

But running this race should not mean abandoning displaced **workers** to their fate. Western governments, companies, and institutions like yours share a collective responsibility: invest massively in professional **retraining**, in social safety nets, in concrete support for **workers** whose **positions** disappear in the name of algorithmic efficiency.

It is this balance between technological ambition and social responsibility that your **report**, however statistically rigorous, does not, in my view, develop enough.

*I remain convinced that the **West** must win this race in **artificial intelligence** against **China**, but winning it without caring about the **workers** sacrificed along the way would be a Pyrrhic victory no one should be satisfied with.*

## The real weight of these numbers on American families

### **Fifteen million** is not a statistical abstraction

**Fifteen million** **workers**, **Mr. Briggs**, is not an abstract figure on a slide. It is the equivalent of the entire **population** of several U.S. states combined. These are engineers, graphic designers, consultants, **analysts** who will have to, in your own words, leave their current **positions** and find new work elsewhere in the **economy**.

You emphasize the temporary nature of this disruption, comparing it to past major technological **transitions**. But every generation of displaced workers experiences its own **transition** as a personal rupture, not as a reassuring historical statistic tucked into an economic research **report**.

### **Young workers**, the first silent victims

Several studies parallel to yours note that entry-level **positions**, traditionally held by young **graduates** entering the workforce, are among the most exposed to this intelligent **automation**. An entire generation could see its entry into working life delayed, complicated, or even jeopardized by this accelerated transformation of the American job market.

This reality deserves particular attention from economic policymakers, rather than a single line in an optimistic report about the long-term benefits of AI-driven **productivity**.

*I sincerely think about the young **graduates** leaving university today only to discover that the entry-level **positions** their predecessors held five years ago have simply vanished. That is not a statistic — it is an entire life plan that must be reinvented under duress.*

## What I humbly propose to your institution

### Greater transparency on the real drivers of **layoffs**

Mr. Briggs, I respectfully propose that **Goldman Sachs** push further the transparency effort already underway with its tracking of AI adoption. Clearly distinguishing, company by company, what is genuinely driven by technological **automation** from what is really a classic financial decision dressed up as a technology choice would help the public better understand the true scale of this transformation.

This clarity would be useful not only to the workers affected, but also to policymakers who need to calibrate their regulatory responses based on the reality of the phenomenon, rather than on announcements sometimes exaggerated for financial communication purposes.

### An **investment** in **retraining** commensurate with the profits generated

I also invite you, Mr. Briggs, to advocate internally for financial institutions that profit from this wave of **automation** to contribute proportionally to funding professional **retraining** programs. It would only be consistent for those who benefit most from this transformation to actively help ease its most painful effects on displaced workers.

This would not be an act of charity, but an **investment** in the long-term social stability of a Western **economy** that needs cohesion to keep innovating without fracturing politically and socially.

*I believe major financial institutions carry a responsibility that goes beyond simple actuarial calculation. Contributing to the **retraining** of displaced workers would be a sign of economic maturity the **West** can no longer afford to ignore.*

## The American political context surrounding this transformation

### A debate that crosses traditional partisan lines

This issue of **automation** through artificial intelligence cuts across the usual political divides in the **United States**. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are worried, each in their own way, about the impact of this transformation on their respective constituents, particularly in the industrial and tech regions most exposed to these labor market upheavals.

This unusual convergence of concerns could, in theory, open the door to bipartisan legislative solutions, even though the current American political landscape, marked by deep divisions on many other issues, makes that prospect uncertain in the short term.

### The limits of current regulation in the face of the speed of change

No federal law today requires American employers to specify whether artificial intelligence played a role in a given layoff decision. This lack of a clear regulatory framework significantly complicates the work of researchers and policymakers trying to measure the true scale of the phenomenon, beyond the sometimes contradictory estimates published by different economic analysis **firms**.

This regulatory gray zone paradoxically benefits companies that wish, for various reasons, to either exaggerate or downplay the role of artificial intelligence in their workforce management decisions.

*I think this lack of regulatory transparency suits plenty of people in Washington as much as in Silicon Valley, and it is exactly this kind of comfortable gray zone that citizens should demand be brought into the light.*

## A historical comparison that deserves nuance

### The industrial **revolution** did not spare an entire generation

You often invoke, Mr. Briggs, past major technological **transitions** to reassure people about the ultimate outcome of this current transformation. But it's worth remembering that the industrial **revolution**, just like the rise of computing in the 1990s, did not spare the generations who lived through them head-on. The long-term benefits, however real, never fully offset the individual suffering experienced during the **transition** itself.

This historical nuance deserves to be integrated more honestly into the public discourse on artificial intelligence, rather than reduced to a reassuring formula mechanically repeated in every optimistic economic report on the subject.

### What history really teaches us about these **transitions**

Economic history mainly teaches that successful technological **transitions** are the ones where public authorities actively supported displaced workers, rather than leaving the market alone to absorb the social shock. It is this historical lesson, more than the simple promise of future **job** creation, that should guide Western public policy in the face of this new wave of intelligent **automation**.

Without that active support, there is a real risk of deepening the already profound inequalities running through American **society**, with potentially lasting political and social consequences for the country's democratic cohesion.

*I think history has already taught us this lesson, again and again: without active support from public authorities, every technological **revolution** leaves losers stranded on the roadside for decades.*

## Concrete examples from sectors already affected

### **Graphic design**, a profession upended in silence

Take the **graphic design** sector, which you yourself cite, Mr. Briggs, among the most exposed. Thousands of professionals who mastered complex software for years are now watching generative tools produce in seconds what used to take them hours. This is not a laboratory hypothesis — it is a lived reality for entire agencies quietly shrinking their creative staff without much media fanfare.

This media discretion is worth highlighting: unlike the massive waves of tech **layoffs** widely covered by the business press, these gradual disappearances of creative **positions** often fly under the radar of public opinion, even though they affect tens of thousands of workers across the country.

### **Consulting**, a sector reinventing itself under pressure

The **consulting** sector, another field you identify as highly exposed, is undergoing a similar transformation. Major **firms** are cutting the number of junior **analysts** they hire each year, replacing part of that analytical work with artificial intelligence tools capable of producing preliminary reports in a fraction of the time it used to take.

This shift is profoundly changing the career prospects of an entire generation of young **graduates** who chose this path believing it would be a stable springboard toward future positions of responsibility.

*I find it troubling that these concrete sectoral transformations remain so poorly documented in the public debate, even though they are already affecting thousands of real careers, here and now, not in a ten-year projection.*

## The political dimension of this economic transformation

### A rising electoral issue

As the November 2026 midterm elections approach, the issue of **automation** through artificial intelligence is starting to enter American political debate, alongside more traditional concerns about inflation and employment. Lawmakers from both parties sense growing anxiety among their constituents over this rapid transformation of the labor market.

This political pressure could, in the months ahead, push the American **Congress** to consider legislative proposals aimed at requiring greater corporate transparency about the role of artificial intelligence in workforce decisions, even though the outcome of these debates remains highly uncertain at this stage.

### The role of individual states in the absence of clear federal law

In the absence of robust federal regulation, several American states, including **California**, have begun exploring local measures to address the impact of automation on employment. These initiatives, while still limited, reflect a growing awareness among local policymakers of a phenomenon the federal government is still struggling to regulate clearly.

This state-by-state regulatory fragmentation, however, creates additional uncertainty for both companies and workers, who must navigate an uneven legal landscape depending on where they live or work.

*I think this state-by-state regulatory fragmentation mostly reflects Washington's inability to act with the speed this technological transformation urgently requires.*

## What other experts think of your projections

### Voices more alarmist than yours

Mr. Briggs, your estimates, significant as they are, actually remain among the more moderate in the current debate. Other tech industry leaders describe far darker scenarios, with AI-linked **unemployment** rates that, in their view, could reach levels comparable to the worst economic crises of the past century.

This considerable gap between your projections and those of some tech leaders shows just how much scientific uncertainty remains about the true scale of this transformation, which in my view should encourage more collective caution rather than the confident certainties displayed on both sides of the debate.

### More optimistic voices that also deserve to be heard

Conversely, some researchers point out that current labor market data do not yet show clear signs of a massive AI-driven employment collapse, even noting a hiring rebound in certain tech sectors otherwise considered among the most exposed to this automation.

This diversity of expert opinion reinforces my sense that we are collectively navigating a statistical fog, where caution and humility should take precedence over certainties asserted too quickly, in either direction.

*Personally, I prefer an acknowledged uncertainty to a comfortable false certainty. And on this issue of AI and employment, I don't think anyone, not even you, Mr. Briggs, holds the whole truth today.*

## What this means for overall Western **competitiveness**

### A transformation that extends beyond American borders

Mr. Briggs, your report focuses on the **United States**, but this transformation touches the entire Western world, from **Europe** to **Canada**, to the **United Kingdom**. Every advanced **economy** will have to navigate similar challenges, in different social and political contexts that are equally sensitive to questions of employment and worker protection.

This international dimension makes coordinated Western action on this issue more urgent, rather than a country-by-country fragmented approach that risks creating **competitiveness** distortions among allies who should instead be presenting a united front against Chinese competition in this strategic sector.

### **China** is watching these Western debates too

It should not be forgotten that **China**, our main strategic rival in this technological race, is watching closely how the West manages the social consequences of its own AI-driven transformation. A West that mismanages this transition socially exposes itself to internal political weakening that its authoritarian rivals will not hesitate to exploit to their advantage.

This is one more argument, Mr. Briggs, for institutions like yours to take the social dimension of this transformation seriously: not only out of human concern, but also as a strategic calculation against rivals watching for the slightest crack in Western social cohesion.

*I think the West must understand that its strength against **China** does not rest solely on its technological capabilities, but also on its ability to protect its own citizens through this transition. A fractured **society** is a vulnerable **society**.*

## The role of **tech companies** themselves

### Giants that could do more

Major American **tech companies**, several of which have announced AI-linked layoff waves in recent months, hold considerable financial resources. If they truly wanted to, they could invest far more in **retraining** programs for their own displaced employees, rather than settling for standard severance packages followed by a well-crafted press release.

Some companies have started experimenting with this kind of internal reskilling program, but these initiatives remain far too marginal to offset the scale of job cuts announced across the tech sector as a whole.

### A missed opportunity for social leadership

I believe, Mr. Briggs, that the companies best positioned to master this technological transformation also have a unique opportunity to demonstrate exemplary social leadership, by investing massively in the professional future of their displaced employees rather than settling for the legal minimum required under current labor regulation.

This leadership opportunity, largely missed so far by the tech industry as a whole, could nonetheless durably strengthen public trust in these companies, at a moment when that trust is eroding considerably among large segments of the American **population**.

*I think tech giants are missing a historic opportunity to show they can innovate without sacrificing their social responsibility. History will remember those who managed to do both at once.*

## The psychological price of permanent uncertainty

### Living in wait of an announced replacement

Mr. Briggs, beyond the numbers, there is a psychological dimension your reports almost never address: that of millions of workers now living in permanent uncertainty about whether their position will be next on the list of AI-linked cuts. This chronic anxiety carries a real cost to mental health and even to the **productivity** of workers who remain employed.

Studies in workplace psychology are beginning to document this new form of professional stress, specifically tied to the fear of automation, a phenomenon now affecting categories of workers who previously believed themselves shielded from this kind of worry, notably in so-called intellectual and creative professions.

### The silence around workers' mental health

This silence around the psychological dimension of the AI transformation strikes me as one of the most significant blind spots in the current economic debate. We measure **jobs** destroyed and created, but we rarely measure the collective anxiety generated by this permanent uncertainty over the professional future of an entire **society**.

Integrating this human dimension into your future reports, Mr. Briggs, would give your institution additional credibility with a public that, rightly, is growing increasingly wary of strictly **statistical** narratives about this major transformation of American **society**.

*I think the silent anguish of millions of workers facing automation deserves as much attention in your reports as **productivity** projections. Numbers don't lose sleep at night. People do.*

## Conclusion: an outstretched hand, not an indictment

### What I really expect from this letter

Mr. Briggs, this letter is not an indictment against you or against **Goldman Sachs**. It is an invitation to step, even for a moment, outside the muted language of economic reports and fully acknowledge the human weight of your projections. Your **fifteen million** workers have names, faces, families, and they deserve better than a reassuring line about future job creation that will, someday, come along to replace them.

### An invitation to action, not only to analysis

I hope this letter finds an echo, not in another statistical report, but in concrete action: more transparency, more **investment** in **retraining**, more consideration for those who will live this transition in their own lives rather than on a chart. That is the very least owed to a generation of **workers** caught in the gears of a **revolution** they did not choose.

*I end this letter with a simple conviction: **technology** must serve people, never the other way around. And until that principle sits at the heart of your reports, Mr. Briggs, my wariness will remain intact.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- The News — AI will cost 15m US jobs, Goldman economist, July 2026

- Goldman Sachs Exchanges — How will AI impact the labor market, July 3, 2026

### Secondary sources

- Newsweek — AI squeeze jobs figures

- Yahoo Finance — AI jobs debate just got more complicated

- Business Insider — Goldman Sachs economist predicts AI displacing 15 million jobs, July 3, 2026

- USA Today — June 2026 jobs report shows hiring below expectations, July 2, 2026

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/a-goldman-sachs-sur-les-15-millions-d-emplois-sacrifies-a-l-ia