Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan, interim dean of The University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs and a widely recognized expert in international affairs, writes in Newsmax that "a familiar doom loop" is driving public discussion about the rise of artificial intelligence in the job market. But the prediction of heavy job losses across entire sectors across the global economy, he says, isn't supported by the facts.
"Looking past the projections and examining what's actually happening in the labor market, it's clear: AI is not destroying more jobs than it creates," Sheehan writes. "Rather, AI is creating jobs at a rate that should fundamentally reshape how we think about this technology's impact on work."
Various statistics cited by Dr. Sheehan indicate a different reality coming into view: AI is making some jobs obsolete, but the number of jobs created by the technology is happening at a larger, faster rate.
"Multiple academic studies tracking actual employment outcomes—not theoretical projections—show the same pattern," he writes.
"Research published in 2026 examining industries with higher exposure to AI from 2017 to 2024 found they experienced 105 productivity increases, 3.9 percent job growth and 4.8 percent wage growth per standard deviation of AI exposure. The Budget Lab at Yale found no relationship between AI exposure and unemployment through August 2025."
This net gain, he says, is driven by AI's capacity for efficiency.
"The reason AI creates more jobs than it destroys boils down to basic economics: productivity gains expand markets.
"When AI makes workers more efficient, companies can lower prices, increase output or develop entirely new products—all of which require more workers, not less," Dr. Sheehan writes.
But it's not all good news.
"Some analyses—including one from Goldman Sachs—have found AI substitution is eliminating certain jobs faster than augmentation replaces them within existing firms, with Gen Z workers absorbing disproportionate pain as entry-level administrative and customer service roles evaporate," Sheehan says.
All of this disruption and course correction is better understood, he writes, if the observer recognizes what AI actually does to a given field.
"Simply put, the jobs destroyed and the jobs created are fundamentally different," Dr. Sheehan writes. "The central challenge is not the quantity of jobs—it's the mismatch."
Instead of a doom loop, Sheehan says, an effective public policy response should focus on incentivizing new skills for thios new economy.
"We don't need programs designed to cushion mass unemployment—we need aggressive reskilling infrastructure to help workers transition from declining roles to growing ones," Dr. Sheehan writes.
Read the piece in Newsmax.
Learn more about Prof. Ivan Sascha Sheehan and The University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs.