Publicly Traded Companies Must Now Report Quarterly Layoffs and Hires Driven by AI Automation

If you’ve been wondering exactly how much AI is affecting the job market—and who’s actually tracking the data—a new piece of legislation aims to bring some clarity. The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act mandates that certain large employers start reporting detailed workforce changes directly related to the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Essentially, this bill creates a mandatory quarterly census focused solely on AI’s impact on employment. Covered entities—initially defined as publicly-traded companies and federal agencies—will have to tell the Secretary of Labor, acting through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, exactly how many people they laid off because their jobs were automated by AI, how many people they hired because of AI, and how many open positions they decided not to fill for the same reason. This data, which must include the company’s industry code (NAICS), is then compiled, analyzed, and published publicly by the Department of Labor every quarter.

The AI Scorecard: What Companies Must Track

For the average person, this means that for the first time, we could get a clear, granular picture of AI’s net effect on jobs, rather than just relying on anecdotal evidence or broad industry reports. The bill requires companies to submit four specific data points within 30 days after the end of each calendar quarter:

1. Layoffs Due to AI: The number of employees whose functions were substantially replaced or automated by AI.
2. Hires Due to AI: The number of new employees hired because of the incorporation of AI.
3. Unfilled Positions: The number of vacancies they chose not to fill because AI took over the function.
4. Retraining Efforts: The number of existing employees being retrained due to AI-related changes.

Why does this matter? Imagine you work in customer service, and your company is considering implementing a new AI chatbot. This bill forces that company to publicly log if your job, or a chunk of your team’s jobs, disappears because of that chatbot. It moves the conversation from abstract fear to concrete numbers, giving policymakers and workers real data to work with. The Secretary of Labor is also given broad authority to request "any other related information," which could expand the scope of reporting down the line.

Who Else Might Get Pulled In?

Right now, the reporting burden falls squarely on publicly-traded companies and government agencies. If you work for a major corporation that trades on the stock market, your employer is a "covered entity." But the bill doesn't stop there. It gives the Secretary of Labor 180 days to issue new regulations determining which non-publicly-traded companies must also comply.

This is a crucial detail for private companies, especially mid-sized and large ones. The Secretary must consider thresholds like employee count, annual revenue, or national/regional employment impact when deciding which private businesses to include. The good news is the bill requires the regulations to ensure that any reporting applied to a non-publicly-traded company is proportionate to that company's size and capacity—meaning your local 50-person machine shop likely won't face the same compliance burden as a massive, privately-held tech firm.

The Bottom Line for the Busy

This bill is less about regulating AI itself and more about regulating transparency. It creates a standardized, mandatory reporting system to quantify the labor market disruption caused by AI. For workers, this means better data to understand where the jobs are going and where they’re coming from. For companies, especially publicly-traded ones, it means a new, recurring compliance task—tracking and reporting these specific AI-related workforce changes four times a year. The ultimate goal is to give Congress and the public a clear, data-driven look at the automation revolution, published for all to see on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website every quarter.