On the impact of AI on the job market, the most objective statement is that no one can predict the net long-term change in employment. But former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo explicitly warns that if American businesses and the government fail to carefully plan for the coming AI transition, short-term layoffs could continue to expand and trigger severe social consequences.

Speaking with Julia Boorstin on the first episode of the second season of the podcast "Changemakers," she said: "If we look the other way, roll out this new technology without a plan to help all Americans keep up with the transition," a scenario of tens of millions of jobs disappearing and a long, deep recession is entirely possible.

Gina Raimondo considers herself an AI optimist. She wants her children to live in an America where many new jobs that are currently unimaginable are created, and the benefits of AI are broadly shared. She said: "Healthcare gets better, technology gets stronger, data applications become more refined."

So why is this former U.S. Commerce Secretary and former Rhode Island governor so worried that mass layoffs will tear apart the foundations of American society? Her answer is: a lack of planning. In the podcast interview recorded at the end of August, Raimondo said: "I think the worst case is that we don't have a plan to guarantee every American can have a good job in the AI era. Tens of millions of Americans will be unemployed or underemployed. Once that happens, I am deeply worried. There could be a long, deep economic recession, even street riots. I am not being alarmist. Ten years ago I wouldn't have said this, but over the past decade, economic inequality has become extremely severe, and our democracy is increasingly damaged."

Raimondo currently leads the nonprofit organization Raise Us, focused on addressing the employment transition brought by AI. She says this outcome would deliver a double blow: regulators would step in to restrict AI innovation, and the United States could hand its technological leadership advantage to China and other countries. "If we let AI develop wildly, and three or four years later we suddenly find the unemployment rate at 10%–11%, with youth unemployment among those in their 20s as high as 20%, then we're in trouble. This isn't jargon... So we must plan ahead."

In fact, no one can accurately predict where the job market is heading, and any claim to fully see the future is an exaggeration. Current research already discusses job changes brought by AI, and the authors of related studies also caution that conclusions about AI's impact on employment and wages at this stage remain reasonable speculation. At the same time, many AI industry leaders have recently been explaining their views, arguing that AI will almost certainly generate a wave of new job creation.

Raimondo firmly believes that in the long run AI will bring net job growth and create many new jobs that are currently unimaginable. "I believe that after some years, like other technological revolutions in history, AI will create more and new types of jobs. I truly believe that. But the transition must be planned. Otherwise, if we blindly unleash new technology without a plan to bring all Americans along, we will see the terrible situation I just described. I don't believe the market alone can smoothly complete this transition; there will inevitably be tremendous turmoil."

Her concern about the AI transition crisis in the labor market comes at least partly from conversations with CEOs of major companies after leaving the Commerce Secretary post. "After I left government, CEOs of large American companies called me one after another, saying they were worried about mass unemployment from AI and robotics. Not just one or two; many executives called, almost all asking: What are you going to do about this?"

Frontier AI laboratories have repeatedly issued safety warnings, and people have begun to worry that AI may pose existential-level risks to humanity. In Raimondo's view, these risks and the job market crisis are not isolated from each other. In her eyes, all the dangers stem from developing too fast with insufficient planning. After safety-related news emerged from OpenAI and Anthropic, Raimondo wrote in a LinkedIn post: "We have already seen many dangerous incidents involving multiple models." "If we don't take all potential harms of AI seriously and invest more research to find the most effective policies and programs, we will fail. As AI capabilities develop faster than expected, we must ensure deployment is safe enough and does not trigger mass unemployment; otherwise, our democracy and social fabric will suffer irreversible damage."

Raimondo co-founded Raise Us with former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, hoping to bring about the best-case transition, connect private capital with government resources, and provide solutions for workers before jobs are displaced. Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, AMD, ADP, Bank of America, Blackstone, Cisco, Eli Lilly, General Motors, IBM, Mastercard, and United Parcel Service (UPS) are among the first companies participating in the project. She said: "Bring employers to the table and persuade them that the way they deploy AI cannot cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their livelihoods overnight. We work with governors across states to adjust policies and achieve an orderly transition to the AI economy."

So far, the organization has advanced pilots in four states—Arkansas, Utah, Maryland, and Connecticut—together with companies and governors. "The jobs affected right now may be call center workers; two years from now it may be other occupations. We must readjust incentive policies, training systems, severance plans, payroll tax rules... to prepare workers for the era of intelligent agents."

Measures being piloted in various states include: establishing an annual service program for young Americans in their early 20s whose career direction is still unclear, as a pathway to full-time jobs; a new type of unemployment insurance; wage subsidies and retraining programs for the unemployed, especially those around age 50—people who, once they lose their jobs, find it very hard to find new work at a comparable income level. The project is also studying labor tax reform. Raimondo explained: "Right now, employers pay payroll taxes for every employee they hire; but using AI intelligent agents requires no tax. Policy incentives drive companies to lay off workers, switch to AI agents, and avoid payroll taxes. This is what I mean by adjusting incentives."

When the Raise Us project launched last June, Raimondo mentioned that the problem of older workers losing jobs is something she has felt personally. Her father was a manufacturing worker with a stable career, but suddenly encountered industrial outsourcing, and after losing his job lacked a support pathway to transition to a new job. "The American workforce system is old and outdated. Unemployment insurance was born during the Great Depression a century ago and has barely changed since. The higher education system is the same. The country spends a lot of money subsidizing college education: Pell Grants, various university subsidies, student loans. The college model does not fit most American students, but funding continues to flow in. This model worked in the post-World War II G.I. Bill era, and it has not been reformed since. My goal is to use the moment when AI is reshaping everything to push policy reform so that every American can stand and thrive in the AI economy."

Raimondo acknowledges this is "a huge challenge." She believes that in the coming years, Congress or a group of corporate executives alone cannot be expected to solve the problem. "Congress will basically not take substantive action. Congress can't get anything done. There are many things I wouldn't bet on, but I would bet heavily: in the next three years, Congress will not pass effective bipartisan legislation to help American workers. That is basically impossible."

She says some CEOs can recognize the crisis, but many have no idea. "I am building a voluntary coalition. The CEOs and boards in the coalition understand the storm is coming and are willing to experiment with innovation and make the right choices. But when you contact many other executives, they only say: No, I'll stick with the old approach, prioritizing maximizing short-term profits and boosting short-term share prices." "The current incentive system is just pressing the layoff button."