Via bloomberg.com
Call center employment has plunged 39% below trend in the US as AI adoption quietly hollows out entry-level positions across multiple industries
Goldman Sachs published a report on August 19 detailing how artificial intelligence is measurably slowing job openings growth across major developed economies. The impact is most pronounced in the United States, Germany, and Australia, with sectors heavily exposed to AI automation diverging sharply from historical employment trends.
The numbers paint a stark picture #
Call centers are the canary in the coal mine here. US call center employment has fallen 39% below its historical trend line. Canada isn’t far behind at 33% below trend, and Germany sits at 27% below.
Beyond call centers, the report identifies software publishing, management consulting, and advertising services as sectors where employment patterns have notably diverged from what historical norms would predict.
Employment in information and communication services has cooled significantly, particularly in the US, where trends are tracking close to what Goldman’s models would expect given broader economic conditions.
The overall AI adoption rate in major developed economies currently sits at approximately 15-20%. The structural shifts in employment data are showing up well before most companies have fully integrated these tools into their operations.
Entry-level workers are bearing the brunt #
A 10% increase in occupational AI exposure corresponds to a roughly 0.1 percentage point decline in overall annual headcount growth across countries like France, Canada, and the US.
For entry-level positions, the same level of AI exposure produces a reduction exceeding 0.6 percentage points in Australia and more than 0.2 percentage points in the United States. Earlier Goldman Sachs research from 2026 estimated that roughly 300 million jobs globally face exposure to AI automation. In the US specifically, AI was estimated to be reducing monthly payroll growth by approximately 16,000 jobs.
Goldman’s data shows the trend accelerating since the second half of 2022, which coincides with the mainstream arrival of generative AI tools.
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