US tech jobs slip as AI automation rises while chip fabs hire

This short labour piece captures an important macro shift: AI is starting to bite into certain categories of white collar tech work at the same time that the chip buildout is creating blue collar and technical manufacturing jobs. For years, the story was that automation would mostly displace routine manual labour while preserving knowledge work. Now, at least in the US data, we see the inverse in some slices: information sector headcount is under pressure while fabs and related supply chains are on hiring sprees.

For AGI watchers, this is an early glimpse of what a more mature AI economy might look like. As software shops automate parts of coding, support, and operations with agents and copilots, they will not necessarily shrink to zero, but they may grow much more slowly. Meanwhile, countries that invest heavily in fabs, packaging plants, and power infrastructure get a countervailing employment boost. That has political consequences. Constituencies tied to chip plants and grid projects may become powerful advocates for continued AI investment, even as displaced information workers push in the opposite direction.

Strategically, this divergence suggests that the social contract around AGI level systems will not be negotiated only in white collar corridors. The people building and maintaining the physical substrate of AI have their own economic stakes. Any serious governance framework will need to bridge that divide, especially in countries that aspire to be both AI labs and manufacturing hubs.