The daily view 9/6/2026: No mass unemployment due to AI, Nike’s downfall , AI and cheating

“U.S. payrolls rose 162,000 in August, much more than expected; unemployment rate at 4.1%:” The U.S. economy added jobs at a brisk pace in August, reversing a summer slowdown in hiring, while the unemployment rate held steady. Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 162,000 for the month while the unemployment rate, as expected, held steady at 4.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a payrolls increase of 53,000. Does this mean the “AI-job apocalypse” is postponed again? It’s macroeconomics 101: if AI is an economic tailwind, history dictates it will create jobs indirectly through increased production and consumer surplus, not destroy jobs. There are a lot of jobs that cannot be automated, like anything involving interacting with people or manual labor. People confuse “AI automation” for “automation in general.” Or existing jobs can change roles. For example, font-end developers are reproposed to audit AI code and…