Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently reiterated a stark warning during an interview, shedding light on the possibly dire future of the job market. Just a few days after his major prediction made headlines, new data release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ended up aligning with the foreboding words.
The data released on Thursday (US time) indicated that US job opening sank to 6.54 million at the end of December, accounting for the lowest level since September 2020.
Anthropic AI CEO’s job loss prediction
In late January, Amodei published a lengthy 20,000-word essay titled “The Adolescence of Technology.” Therein, he explicitly wrote, “AI will disrupt 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs over 1–5 years, while also thinking we may have AI that is more capable than everyone in only 1–2 years.”
Having co-founded Anthropic in 2021, he predicted that adapting to AI development’s pace would trigger an “unusually painful” shock in the labour market. “The pace of progress in AI is much faster than for previous technological revolutions,” he wrote. “It is hard for people to adapt to this pace of change, both to the changes in how a given job works and in the need to switch to new jobs.”
He added, “The technology is not replacing a single job but acting as a ‘general labor substitute for humans.”
With AI capable to handle a variety of work, Amodei raised the concern that it come for wide-ranging jobs from “law to finance to consulting.”
Shortly after that, he sat down for an exclusive interview with NBC News, addressing his remarks about how artificial intelligence will disrupt the job market.
New job data: Worst January for layoffs since 2020
Cut to this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ new data backed the concerns amplified by Amodei, as job postings continue to slump to their lowest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.
As per the data released Thursday, the estimated number of job opening dropped to 6.54 million at the end of Dec 2025.
Weighing in on the sharply falling graph, Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said that sweeping policies imposed by the Donald Trump administration, including those related to tariffs and immigration, had particularly impacted hiring plans for the worse. At a volatile time like this, Long noted that companies have opted to invest in AI instead.
“The hiring recession isn’t going to end anytime soon,” she added.
On the other side, a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas released the same day showed that US-based employers announced plans to hirs 5,306 workers. It made for the lowest ever for the month of January, as per Challenger, which started tracking hiring announcements in 2009.
Labor Department data published Thursday further showed that an estimated 231,000 initial jobless claims were filed during the week ending on January 31. This indicated a rise of 22,000 claims from the previous week.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ also took into account how mass layoffs announced by the likes of Amazon and UPS rung in the worst January for job cut announcements since the Great Recession.
According to the report, the biggest reasons cited for the month’s layoffs were contract loss, market and economic conditions, restructuring or closures. AI, on the other hand, was linked to 7,624 cuts.
“It’s difficult to say how big an impact AI is having on layoffs specifically,” Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at the outplacement and executive coaching firm, said in a statement. “We know leaders are talking about AI, many companies want to implement it in operations, and the market appears to be rewarding companies that mention it.”
Marking a threefold surge from layoff announcements in December, US-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January. As per Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ new monthly report, this was more than double what was indicated in January 2025.
Amazon and UPS were together responsible for about 40% of January’s layoff announcements, which hit the highest number made in January since 2009. The January layoff announcements recorded by Challengers were limited to the industries – transportation, technology, health care and health products, chemical and financial.
“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” said Andy Challenger. “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less than optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”