University of Maryland Study Finds No AI-Driven Job Loss

A comprehensive study from the University of Maryland has concluded that artificial intelligence is not driving widespread job losses, despite mounting worker anxiety about the technology's impact on employment.

The finding comes from the University of Maryland-LinkUp AI Maps Project, a collaboration between LinkUp, Outrigger Group, and the university's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Researchers used advanced AI systems to analyze 155 million U.S. job postings between 2018 and 2025.

"There is no empirical evidence that AI is reducing overall labor market demand," the research team concluded, according to The Baltimore Banner, which first reported the findings.

The disconnect between perception and data

The research arrives amid widespread worker concern about AI's role in hiring. Tamara Ward, a Prince George's County resident who applied for more than 700 jobs after accepting a buyout from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in October, believes automated screening systems rejected her applications before human reviewers saw them.

"The software is screening us out before a human being even has the opportunity to see us," Ward told The Banner. "I honestly believe reliable candidates, including myself, are being excluded from consideration."

But Anil Gupta, a University of Maryland professor who co-led the project, said the data points elsewhere. Companies are adjusting after pandemic-era overhiring, while tariffs, high interest rates, and elevated oil prices constrain hiring decisions. Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell characterized the current environment as a "low hire, low fire" market.

Why it matters

The research challenges a dominant narrative about AI's labor market impact at a moment when unemployment is rising and hiring has slowed. For business leaders evaluating AI adoption, the findings suggest technology deployment may not carry the workforce reduction risks many assume—but also that economic headwinds, not automation gains, explain current hiring constraints.

Entry-level positions actually increasing

Contrary to fears that AI eliminates entry-level opportunities, the research found these positions represented nearly 13% of job listings in 2025, up from under 12% previously. An increasing share of those postings now mention AI skills as requirements.

Prince Michael Kemani, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County student studying computer science and statistics, said employers actively ask about AI usage in interviews. "If you can't use AI, then you can't do work fast enough," he said.

Young worker unemployment remains elevated—the rate for 20- to 24-year-olds reached 9.2% last fall, the highest since the pandemic. But Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers attribute this to the rise of remote work, not AI. Employers became reluctant to hire fresh graduates for remote roles during the pandemic "because it is more difficult to teach them the requisite skills from afar," that research found.

Skills requirements shifting

While AI may not be eliminating jobs wholesale, it is changing what employers seek. More than 1% of jobs required technical AI skills at the end of 2025, up from less than 0.25% when ChatGPT launched in late 2022.

Ward adapted to this shift by pursuing a master's degree in artificial intelligence for business at the University of Baltimore and launching AI Literacy for Students, a program teaching high schoolers critical thinking about AI-generated content.

Zack Mabel, research director at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, cautioned that job postings are becoming less reliable indicators of actual hiring patterns. "There's a large disconnect right now between the potential that AI has in terms of transforming the types of work that people do, the types of jobs that are available to people, and how it is actually disrupting the economy, if at all," he said.

The Baltimore Banner first reported these research findings.