Apollo Economist Says AI Affecting Wages More Than Employment

Artificial intelligence is affecting the labor market, though not in the way people might think.

That’s according to Torsten Slok, Apollo Global Management’s chief economist, who told Bloomberg News on Saturday (Aug. 22) that the impact of AI can be seen on weaker wage growth rather than overall employment.

Slok and fellow research Sania Edlich looked at around 300 occupations broken into high- and low-AI-exposure groups and studied how they fared before and after the advent of ChatGPT, finding that the wages of workers with AI exposure grew 6.7% more slowly than people whose jobs had lower exposure to AI.

This effect was more pronounced among lower-income workers, the report said. Slok added that AI has accelerated the rate of business formation, which is now at a record high.

“So far the dominating effect has been that there is also a much more dynamic economy where people can now invent ideas, use agents, use loops, graphs to come up with ideas and as a result, create more businesses,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg.

The report said that this analysis provides another data point in a growing debate over how AI will transform the job market. Bloomberg noted that it contrasts with other findings, like a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report that examined 18 occupations with AI exposure, finding a 0.2% drop in jobs as of May 2025 from the prior year, with overall payrolls climbing 0.8%.

And economists at Goldman Sachs said in May that fields “highly exposed to AI substitution” saw a faster decline in job openings than others.

Meanwhile, recent research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows the effect of AI on Labor Economy workers, or those earning up to $25 an hour and typically less than $50,000 per year.

“The Resilience Deficit: Labor Workers in an Automated Economy” found that AI is reaching all types of workplaces, with 37% of these workers saying their employer had introduced new AI or automation tools in the last 12 months.

At the same time, the research also found that lower-income workers are getting less training, showing less confidence and enjoying fewer financial buffers to handle disruption.

“The findings also suggested that AI’s impact is moving beyond Silicon Valley and corporate offices into warehouses, restaurants, hospitality, logistics and caregiving jobs that make up a large share of everyday consumer spending,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this year.

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