Mark Zandi

You can kind of feel it and see it in some of the industries that are on the front lines of artificial intelligence.

You can certainly see it in the tech industry.

You can kind of feel it in customer support and service in the financial services industry.

There's some academic research that are connecting dots using third-party data, ADP data, for example, between AI.

young people in tech sectors that are getting creamed.

And hiring rates are particularly poor for entry-level younger people, which you would expect to be more likely to be affected by AI.

So I think we're starting to see the early effects of it.

By the way, that's another reason for a bit of nervousness.

I mean, if

the AI productivity gains start to kick into a higher gear here at the same time that we're not creating jobs and we're grappling with the effects of these higher energy prices.

That's another reason to be nervous that we'll start to see some layoffs and that firewall will come down and go into recession.

But the other reason you often hear, I think there's some truth to it is,

Quit rates are down.

People aren't quitting as much.

They kind of settle into their jobs.

Many people quit, obviously, back during the pandemic and are now kind of in the sweet spot after a move.

After you move two, three, four, five years in, that's when you're really reaping the benefits of that move.

And because of that, people aren't moving.

And aging of the population also reinforces that.

So if you don't have quits, you don't have hires.