Machines don’t pay payroll taxes.
Our welfare states are financed by work. What happens when value creation needs fewer wage earners?
Our pensions assume future generations will work.
Our tax systems assume people will earn wages.
Our companies are building systems that may need fewer wage earners.
Who is redesigning the social contract?
What is at stake, in our extrapolation
Suppose the share of agent-capable jobs we measure (9.3%) applied to all officially counted open vacancies:
An extrapolation, not a measurement: our quota × officially counted vacancies × average wage × OECD tax wedge. Calculation and limits on the methodology page. See the calculation →
Yes, companies pay taxes too.
Automated production creates value, and profits are taxed.
But pensions, health and unemployment insurance are largely financed through contributions on wages. A profit tax does not automatically replace a payroll contribution.
If value creation decouples from wage labour, does the financing of the welfare state have to change with it?
Labour market statistics look in the rear-view mirror.
AI moves forward.
The decisive question for society is not only:
How many people were laid off because of AI?
But also:
How many jobs are no longer created?
How many retirements are not refilled?
How many teams shrink despite rising output?
How many junior positions disappear?
How does the entry into professions change?
Jobs that are never created appear in no layoff statistic.
That does not make them less relevant.
Maybe you will never be fired because of AI.
Maybe your successor will simply never be hired.
“We didn't refill the position.”