As more companies say they'll replace human workers with artificial intelligence, Sen. Josh Hawley is pushing a bipartisan bill that would allow Congress to track how AI impacts American jobs.
Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the AI-Related Jobs Impacts Clarity Act early last month with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. If passed, the bill would require companies and federal agencies to report the number of people they lay off due to AI to the Department of Labor at the end of each quarter.
The department would then compile that data and publish a report to Congress and the public on how AI impacts American jobs, a data point Hawley and Warner say is needed as Congress looks toward ongoing policy on the workforce and AI.
"Artificial intelligence is already replacing American workers, and experts project AI could drive unemployment up to 10 to 20% in the next five years," Hawley said in a statement. "The American people need to have an accurate understanding of how AI is affecting our workforce, so we can ensure that AI works for the people, not the other way around."
The bill comes in the wake of growing reports of layoffs across the country. A recent report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that tracks nationwide layoffs, reported U.S.-based employers have announced plans to cut roughly 1.2 million jobs through the end of the year.
A new trend appeared within those layoffs, however. Companies like Duolingo, Salesforce and payment service Klarna attributed their layoffs to the idea that AI could do the work of the employees.
In Challenger, Gray & Christmas' October job report, the firm stated that AI was the second-most-cited factor for job cuts, amounting to roughly 48,000 layoffs in 2025.
But there's no official tracking of the impact AI is having on the job market. After introducing the bill, Warner said that without official data, Congress will struggle to react to the growing impact of AI on the workforce.
"This bipartisan legislation will finally give us a clear picture of AI's impact on the workforce – what jobs are being eliminated, which workers are being retrained, and where new opportunities are emerging. Armed with this information, we can make sure AI drives opportunity instead of leaving workers behind," said Warner.
Oliver Roberts, a co-director of WashU Law's AI Collaborative, said Hawley and Warner's proposed legislation is a step in the right direction. He said the current wave of AI-attributed layoffs might be just the beginning.
"I very much believe that we could see the great AI replacement — that is, thousands and even millions of people getting laid off from their jobs," he said. "If your job is something like data entry or going through repeatable processes, your job could be easily automated by artificial intelligence."
An August report from Goldman Sachs threw a wet blanket on such a theory, estimating that if AI use expanded further across the economy, an estimated 2.5% of U.S. employment would be at risk. However, the report listed occupations like computer programmers, accountants, auditors and more as at higher risk for being displaced by AI.
"A recent pickup in AI adoption and reports of AI-related layoffs have raised concerns that AI will lead to widespread labor displacement," the report read. "While these trends could broaden as adoption increases, we remain skeptical that AI will lead to large employment reductions over the next decade."
However, a Future of Jobs report from the World Economic Forum in early 2025 estimated that AI and other forms of automation could replace as many as 92 million jobs by 2030, while adding 170 million new types of positions.
Roberts said that AI programs are improving at a fast rate, and that companies are only beginning to eye them as possibly cheaper alternatives to human employment. Currently, he said, the large language models that power most AI applications hallucinate and aren't completely accurate.
However, he said, once those models begin to perform at a more accurate level, companies could move further toward AI programs as an alternative to some jobs.
It's because of that, Roberts said, that legislators need to move quickly to get ahead of that possibility, arming themselves with data that could enable legislative intervention if needed. He said that while Hawley and Warner's bill wouldn't stop the adoption and integration of AI into the workforce, it would give Congress a better ability to track how things are shifting.
"We may see a world in the future where we have many mass layoffs, and people are not getting hired, and there's not new jobs due to all this automation," Roberts said. "That is when we'll probably see that come to Jesus moment where we have to have the discussion. What is the future work going to look like? How are people going to sustain a living in this new world?"
Copyright 2025 St. Louis Public Radio
