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California is tracking AI job losses — but should track gains, too

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More than half of Americans fear that they, or someone in their household, could lose their job to AI.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll ‌showed that concern about AI-related job losses is widely shared across the population. (Other polls are more optimistic, suggesting a range of opinions.)

While AI could create new challenges in the job market, it could also create new opportunities.

In that context, California deserves credit for something rare in public policy: building an ambitious new labor-market measurement tool to monitor AI-related job losses.

The California Policy Lab, working with the state’s Employment Development Department, recently launched a public dashboard tracking AI-related unemployment claims in near-real time. It adds to the toolbox that economists have to analyze AI, along with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab dashboard.

The researchers behind the project have been admirably transparent about what their data can — and cannot — show.

That effort deserves recognition, but there are also major limitations in the tracker.

For starters, it measures only one side of AI’s effect on the labor market: jobs that disappear. It cannot measure the jobs AI creates, the workers it helps retain, or the productivity gains that lead firms to hire more people. A dashboard focused solely on unemployment risks telling only half the story.

Another limitation is that California still records workers’ occupations using the Dictionary of Occupational Titles — a federal........

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