Blake Lawit, chief global affairs and legal officer for Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn, confirmed this week that internal company data shows global hiring has fallen roughly 20% since 2022. Lawit shared the update in an interview at the Semafor World Economy Summit.

Despite widespread speculation that rapid AI adoption is driving the hiring slowdown, Lawit pushed back hard against that common narrative.

“At LinkedIn, we maintain what we call the Economic Graph, a dataset covering more than a billion members, plus companies, open roles, and in-demand skills,” Lawit explained during the interview. “It gives us an incredibly clear, real-time snapshot of exactly what’s unfolding in the global labor market. Since everyone is desperate to answer this question — is AI already impacting jobs right now? — we’ve dug into the data extensively. Honestly? We haven’t seen any sign of that impact yet.”

Instead of AI, Lawit tied the ongoing hiring decline much more directly to the global rise in interest rates over recent years.

Lawit went on to note that if AI were already suppressing hiring, the steepest cuts would show up in the fields widely flagged as most vulnerable to AI disruption: customer support, administrative work, marketing, and similar roles. “We just haven’t seen that kind of disproportionate impact in those areas,” he said. “Yes, overall hiring is down across the board, but it’s not down any more in those AI-exposed fields than anywhere else.”

Lawit also added that LinkedIn’s data does not show a sharper hiring decline for college-aged young people landing their first full-time jobs, compared to workers in the middle or later stages of their careers.

That said, Lawit stopped short of ruling out major AI-driven job shifts down the line. “This doesn’t mean AI impacts on hiring won’t happen in the future — it just hasn’t happened yet,” he clarified.

On that note, Lawit did share a stark warning about shifting workplace demands: Over the last several years, the full set of skills required for the average job has already changed by 25%. With AI’s continued rapid growth, LinkedIn projects that number will climb to 70% by 2030.

“So even if you never change jobs, your job is going to change around you,” he said.