As more companies say they will replace human workers with artificial intelligence, Senator Josh Hawley is pushing for a bipartisan bill that would allow Congress to track how AI is affecting American jobs.
Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the AI-Related Jobs Impacts Clarity Act early last month with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. If the bill passes, companies and federal agencies would be required to report the number of people they have fired because of AI to the Department of Labor at the end of each quarter.
The department would then collect that data and release a report to Congress and the public on how AI is impacting American jobs, a data point that Hawley and Warner say is necessary as Congress looks to move forward on workforce and AI policies.
“Artificial intelligence is already replacing American workers, and experts predict that AI could increase unemployment by 10 to 20% over the next five years,” Hawley said in a statement. “The American people need an accurate understanding of how AI impacts our workforce so we can ensure AI works for the people, not the other way around.”
The bill comes in the wake of there are increasing reports of layoffs across the country. A recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a company that tracks layoffs nationwide, said U.S.-based employers have announced plans to cut about 1.2 million jobs by the end of the year.
However, within these layoffs, a new trend emerged. Companies like Duolingo, Salesforce and payment service Klarna attributed their layoffs to the idea that AI could do the work of employees.
In Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s October jobs report, the company said AI was the second most cited factor for job losses, equating to approximately 48,000 layoffs by 2025.
But there is no official insight into the impact AI has on the labor market. After introducing the bill, Warner said that without official data, Congress will struggle to respond to AI’s growing impact on the workforce.
“This bipartisan legislation will finally give us a clear picture of AI’s impact on the workforce – which jobs are being cut, which workers are being retrained, and where new opportunities are emerging. Armed with this information, we can ensure that AI drives opportunity rather than leaving workers behind,” Warner said.
Oliver Roberts, 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 may be just the beginning.
“I very much believe we could see the great AI replacement – meaning thousands and even millions of people being laid off,” he said. “If your job is something like entering data or going through repeatable processes, your work can easily be automated by artificial intelligence.”
An August report from Goldman Sachs threw a damp blanket on such a theory, estimating that if the use of AI were to expand further in the economy, there would be a It is estimated that 2.5% of US employment would be at risk. However, the report identifies professions such as computer programmers, accountants, auditors and more that are at greater risk of being displaced by AI.
“A recent surge in AI adoption and reports of AI-related layoffs have raised concerns that AI will lead to widespread job displacement,” the report said. “While these trends may expand as adoption increases, we remain skeptical that AI will lead to major employment reductions over the next decade.”
However, a Future of Employment Report of 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 jobs.
Roberts said AI programs are improving at a rapid pace and companies are just beginning to see these programs as potentially cheaper alternatives to human employment. Currently, he says, the large language models that power most AI applications are hallucinatory and not entirely accurate.
However, he said that once these models start performing at a more accurate level, companies could move further toward AI programs as an alternative for some jobs.
It is therefore, Roberts said, that lawmakers must act quickly to get ahead of that possibility, and arm themselves with data that can enable legislative action if necessary. 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 changing.
“We may see a world in the future where we have a lot of mass layoffs, people aren’t being hired and there are no new jobs because of all this automation,” Roberts said. “That’s when we’ll probably see the Jesus moment where we have to have the discussion. What will future work look like? How will people make a living in this new world?’
Copyright 2025 St. Louis Public Radio
