Economists Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen of Pantheon Macroeconomics have tracked rising job losses in sectors exposed to AI, including accounting, advertising, office administration, and legal services. While construction employment has grown due to data centre building, white-collar roles are steadily disappearing. At Goldman Sachs, economist Joseph Briggs noted that “Concerns of imminent AI-related job losses [in the media] have cooled. But recent labor market data show some signs of AI-related hiring headwinds.” Under Goldman’s baseline forecast of a 15% productivity boost from AI, Briggs estimates that around 9% of workers could be temporarily displaced.
The job displacement news arrives during a turbulent week for financial markets. The S&P 500 fell 1.21% on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq dropped 2.9%. Meta lost nearly 7%, and CoreWeave, an AI cloud provider, fell 10.06%, leaving it down 22% for the year. Bank of America estimates CoreWeave faces a $20 billion funding shortfall to support its existing contracts; BNP Paribas puts the gap at $30 billion. The broader sell-off has also been fuelled by rising oil prices, Brent crude reached $114 per barrel after reports that the Trump administration signalled a willingness to continue military operations against Iran for at least another year, and by mounting concerns over France’s budget crisis, which pushed 10-year French bond yields above 5.1% before they settled back at 5.05%.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, urged perspective, noting that the Nasdaq 100 had been at a record high only weeks ago and remains up 20% year-on-year. “This is digestion, not a crash,” he said.
In France, a planned protest on Saturday against a lack of state funding for education is expected to pass along Paris’s luxury shopping routes. Macquarie analysts Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry warned that the route “seems to be designed to create the greatest retail-level economic disruption in Q4 2026” and could adversely affect France’s fourth-quarter GDP.
In a separate lighter item, U2 ticket pricing for the band’s 2027 tour reveals an unusual strategy: the best general admission floor seats will be the cheapest, at around $100, while top-end VIP hospitality packages cost $1,150. Lead singer Bono explained that the band ensures the best seats are the most affordable while having “no problem separating rich people from their money”.