FT's Burn-Murdoch: US productivity surge is not AI — it's a uniquely American labor pattern
jburnmurdoch · x · 2026-11-01
FT chief economics commentator John Burn-Murdoch pushes back on claims that AI is now visible in productivity data.
- Comparing AI-adopting sectors (tech, finance, professional services) across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, EU27, France, Germany and Sweden, only the US breaks from its 2012–19 output-per-worker trend after ChatGPT
- A trend that pre-dates AI and only shows up in the US looks like the American labor market's flexible response to shocks — more layoffs, weaker firms failing, reallocation into productive sectors — a pattern seen in the Great Recession, Covid and post-2022 alike
- Junior tech employment has fallen across countries, but only the US shows dips in other AI-exposed jobs, again pointing to US firms betting on doing more with less
- Software revenue can expand independently of headcount (Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Spotify), unlike finance or consulting — so disruption risk depends on how a sector operates, not just which tasks a job contains
- Conclusion: attributing US productivity data to AI is, for now, an error — though AI beliefs may be shaping hiring and layoff decisions
Full article in the FT.
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