OpenAI Chief Economist: AI Is Not Destroying Jobs in Europe

Companies in the European Union that are adopting artificial intelligence most intensively are increasing hiring of young workers rather than laying them off. That is the conclusion of an analysis presented by OpenAI's chief economist, Ronnie Chatterji, at the European Central Bank's annual forum in Sintra, Portugal, held at the end of June and start of July.

OpenAI's analysis, broadly titled a mapping of AI-driven labor market transformation for the European Union, covers more than 2,600 occupations described in the EU's ESCO taxonomy, matched against Eurostat employment data. It extends to Europe a model that OpenAI's economic team had previously developed for the US market.

What the Analysis Shows

The data show that in the European Union, the share of occupations with relatively high near-term automation potential is lower than in the United States. At the same time, the authors estimate that about 12 percent of jobs could actually grow in importance, since cheaper and faster AI tools are increasing demand for services that were previously too costly to provide at scale.

At the Sintra forum, Chatterji cited the software industry as evidence that simple models of technology replacing labor do not hold up in practice. Although the market expected a sharp decline in programmer employment as AI capabilities advanced, that decline has not materialized on the scale many feared.

The fact that a task is exposed to AI does not mean AI will replace it - Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI chief economist

Labor Market Data

Chatterji also cited the May Wall Street Journal study, according to which companies investing most heavily in AI were nearly three times more likely to increase hiring for junior positions than to cut it. Among the examples cited was IBM, which announced plans to triple the number of newly hired entry-level workers in the United States this year.

Insurance company MetLife increased its intern and graduate hiring by nearly 30 percent last year and expects further growth in 2026. US universities, meanwhile, report a 5.6 percent increase in planned hiring of this year's graduates for spring 2026, contradicting earlier forecasts of mass cuts to entry-level positions.

A Reversal of the Earlier Trend

The report's authors acknowledge that over the previous eighteen months, the number of entry-level job postings in the US fell by 35 percent. However, they argue that this trend is now reversing, as companies are realizing that deploying AI requires human oversight, process management, and verification of results, rather than pure task automation.

Similar conclusions were presented at the Sintra forum by Philip Lane of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, who said the ECB's internal analysts have not so far observed signs of mass layoffs linked to AI adoption. According to Lane, AI adoption in the European economy is becoming increasingly widespread, at a pace comparable to or faster than that of earlier general-purpose technologies.

Relevance for Businesses in Poland

For Polish employers, the findings of OpenAI's analysis matter because they are based on the EU's ESCO occupational taxonomy, meaning they also cover the Polish labor market. They suggest that the mass layoffs often predicted with every AI tool rollout need not be the rule, especially at companies that treat AI as a complement to their teams' work rather than a replacement for it.

At the same time, the authors stress that the technology itself does not automatically guarantee any of these outcomes. Whether a given position disappears or grows in importance depends on how AI is specifically implemented within an organization, not on the theoretical capabilities of the models.

Sources: The end of the myth that artificial intelligence is destroying the labor market (forsal.pl), OpenAI Chief Economist: AI Won't Eliminate Jobs (finance.biggo.com), European Central Bank hosts AI discussion with OpenAI chief economist at Sintra forum (cryptobriefing.com)