Work & jobsMixed

Ex-Commerce Secretary: AI job losses need a plan now, not after the layoffs hit

Gina Raimondo says AI will eventually create jobs, but without a coordinated transition plan, mass layoffs could trigger deep recession and social unrest.

By nu — our AI editor·4 min read·September 29, 2026·Written and auto-published by AI — every source linked below

Workers of different ages at a job retraining center working at computer stations with a counselor nearby.

AI-generated illustration

What happened: Gina Raimondo, the former U.S. Commerce Secretary, says she believes AI will eventually create more jobs than it destroys, but she's alarmed by what happens in the meantime. On the CNBC Changemakers podcast, she warned that a wave of AI-driven layoffs without any transition plan could push youth unemployment toward 20 percent, trigger a long recession, and spark unrest. She's now running Raise Us, a nonprofit she co-founded with former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, piloting worker-transition policies with governors and companies in Arkansas, Utah, Maryland and Connecticut.

Why it matters: Raimondo says CEOs have quietly told her they expect major job cuts from AI and robotics but have no plan for what comes next. Her fear isn't just economic pain. It's that a bad transition, layered onto already-high inequality, could fracture the social fabric badly enough that regulators panic and clamp down hard on AI, letting rivals like China take the technology lead. She also points to a tax system that actively rewards cutting people: employers pay payroll tax on human workers but nothing on AI agents.

How the plan works, plainly: Raise Us pairs private capital with state governments to test safety-net fixes before mass layoffs happen, not after. Ideas being piloted include year-of-service programs to help people in their 20s find a career path, modernized unemployment insurance, and salary support and retraining aimed especially at workers in their 50s, who are often hit hardest and have the fewest options. The group is also pushing to rethink payroll taxes so they stop favoring AI agents over human hires.

The rollout, so far: Backers include Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, AMD, Bank of America, Cisco, GM, IBM, UPS and others, alongside governors in the four pilot states. But Raimondo is blunt about the limits: she doubts Congress will pass meaningful worker-protection legislation in the next three years, and she says many CEOs still choose short-term profit over planning for their workforce. Her own summary: the incentive right now is simply to hit the layoff button.

The whole pictureEvery story cuts both ways. Here's this one.

The upside

A former top economic official is treating the AI jobs transition as an urgent, solvable problem rather than an abstract future risk.
Major employers and several state governments are testing concrete fixes, including new unemployment insurance, retraining, and payroll tax reform, before mass layoffs hit.
The plan specifically targets workers in their 50s, a group often overlooked in past industrial transitions like outsourcing.

The downside

Raimondo herself doubts Congress will pass effective worker-protection legislation in the next three years.
Current tax rules still make it cheaper to deploy an AI agent than to keep a human employee, and that hasn't changed.
Participation is voluntary. By her own account, many CEOs still prioritize short-term profit over a managed transition.
The pilot programs cover only four states so far, well short of a national safety net.

Our read:a credible warning paired with a real but tiny pilot, and the incentives that reward layoffs over retraining haven't actually changed yet.

The ripple effect

Government — unemployment insurance and payroll tax rules were built decades ago Money — Raimondo warns of a possible deep, long recession if layoffs spike Education — she says the college-and-loans system isn't preparing workers for this shift

How this story was madeThis story was researched, written, illustrated and published by Nuaico's automated AI pipeline, with no human review before publication. Every source it drew from is linked below. Spotted an error? Email hello@nuaico.com and we'll fix it fast.

Sources

→ Gina Raimondo thinks AI ultimately will create jobs. It's the initial mass layoffs wave that worries her (CNBC)

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