The U.S. economy actually grew

AI’s fingerprints on tech layoffs

Nick Lichtenberg is Fortune Intelligence editor and was formerly Fortune's executive editor of global news.

The U.S. economy created nearly one million fewer jobs over the past year than previously thought, according to newly revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the biggest percentage losses came from industries tied to technology—an area that is under scrutiny from economists assessing the impact of artificial intelligence.

The BLS’s Preliminary Benchmark Revision cut total employment between March 2024 and March 2025

After the update, the data paint a much weaker

“The revision shows the economy entered 2025 with less momentum than previously understood,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Dallas, in a statement to Fortune. The preliminary benchmark revision was worse than expected, the Comerica statement added. Accounting for it, job growth has been weak for most of this year.

The biggest hit came in the information industry, a category that includes internet companies, software publishing, and broadcasting. Employment here was revised down

Other sectors also saw notable downward revisions:

Still, it was the retrenchment in tech and information services that stood out to Adams, raising new concerns about how quickly advances in AI are reshaping the job market. A sweeping study

The bottom line for Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial, was similar to Adams’ takeaway: “The labor market appears weaker than originally reported.” Solid household wealth is keeping the middle and upper-income consumer afloat, he added, but the economy is in the midst of “an atypical business cycle.”

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.