U.S. and Chinese delegations have arrived in the U.K. for talks aimed at patching up a fraying truce in an ongoing trade war between the world's two biggest economies. The US team leby The U.S. team led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are due to meet with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng in London in a renewed effort to break the deadlock after last month’s Geneva talks failed to produce meaningful results.

The high-stakes meeting follows President Donald Trump’s call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on June 5, after which Trump announced that the dispute over China’s rare earth export restrictions—a key obstacle in trade talks—had been resolved.

“There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products,” Trump said on Truth Social following the call. “Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined.”

The hour-and-a-half-long conversation came after Trump publicly expressed frustration over Beijing’s negotiating tactics, calling Xi “very tough” and “extremely hard to make a deal with” in a Truth Social post the day before.

As Emel Akan reports for The Epoch Times, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the U.S. trade officials will press their Chinese counterparts to fully comply with the terms of the May 12 trade agreement reached in Geneva, which included reciprocal tariff reductions. Under the deal, both countries agreed to reduce tariffs by 115 percent while maintaining an additional 10 percent levy.

“The administration has been monitoring China’s compliance with the deal, and we hope that this will move forward to have more comprehensive trade talks,” Leavitt told Fox News on June 8.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will lead the American delegation in London.

Rare Earths Still in Focus

Despite Trump’s declaration that the rare earths dispute has been resolved, his officials remain cautious.

According to National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, while rare earth exports have resumed, they are still below the levels previously agreed upon.

“Those exports of critical minerals have been getting released at a rate that is higher than it was but not as high as we believe we agreed to in Geneva,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on June 8.

“We want the rare earths, the magnets that are crucial for cell phones and everything else, to flow just as they did before the week of April, and we don’t want any technical details to slow that down, and that’s clear to them.”

In response to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, Beijing introduced export restrictions on critical rare earth elements, metals, and magnets effective April 4. Beijing has tightened export controls on seven rare earth elements—samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium—straining supply chains critical to America’s defense, aerospace, and automotive sectors.

The latest restrictions follow a December 2024 export ban on three key minerals—antimony, gallium, and germanium—imposed in retaliation for former President Joe Biden’s technology curbs targeting the Chinese communist regime.

China dominates global rare earths supply chains, accounting for nearly 60 percent of worldwide production and almost 85 percent of processing capacity. The Chinese regime has turned that dominance into a strategic weapon against other countries in recent years.

While the terms of the deal are still being worked out, Hassett expressed optimism about the London meeting.

“I’m very comfortable that this deal is about to be closed,” he said.

Deeper trade issues continue to loom over the talks.

China’s Longstanding Trade Violations

In May, the U.S. Commerce Department issued a new rule banning the use of Huawei Technologies’ Ascend computer chips worldwide, arguing they were developed in violation of American export controls.

The move drew backlash from Beijing, which urged the U.S. government to undo the action.

The recent dispute reflected broader U.S. concerns over Beijing’s long-standing abusive trade practices that disadvantage American businesses and workers.

Communist China’s rise since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 has been mainly fueled by such controversial trade policies, which include stealing intellectual property, attacking foreign firms operating in the country, manipulating its currency, and massively subsidizing domestic companies.

Some China hawks in Washington believe that Beijing is determined to maintain these mercantilist trade practices.

Even if Beijing comes to the negotiation table, it’s unwilling to bargain on these core problems that the United States wants resolved, according to Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a science and technology think tank.

“They’ve never been willing to even acknowledge that these are problems,” he told The Epoch Times in an April interview.

It remains unclear to what extent Beijing’s unfair trade practices will be addressed or resolved during the London talks.

Beijing initially denied having violated the Geneva trade agreement on May 30. The regime escalated its rhetoric on June 2, when a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry issued a statement through state media attacking Washington’s decision to revoke visas for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

“The United States and China have strategic interests in one another’s markets, and the President is always going to put American workers and industries first,” Leavitt said during the Fox News interview. “And the talks in Geneva really set the table for that, but we need China to comply with their side of the deal. And so that’s what the trade team will be discussing tomorrow.”

The U.S. team will issue a readout after the meeting, she said.

President Trump has championed the idea that a key part of making America great again is bringing back industries that left the country in recent decades. With his tariff-driven trade policy, the White House has promoted “Made in America” as a way to create jobs and boost the economy.

Based on April 2025 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, highlights the U.S. states leading and lagging in manufacturing employment.

California Leads in Manufacturing

Manufacturing remains geographically diverse across the U.S., with major hubs on both coasts and in the interior.

In terms of absolute numbers, California leads the nation, with 1.22 million manufacturing jobs. Texas follows with 970,600 jobs, while Ohio and Michigan maintain their traditional industrial strength with 687,500 and 597,600 jobs, respectively.

State Manufacturing Jobs Jobs per 100k California 1,222.9K 3094.0 Texas 970.6K 3101.9 Ohio 687.5K 5785.4 Michigan 597.6K 5893.2 Illinois 574.7K 4521.6 Pennsylvania 561.5K 4293.2 Indiana 523.3K 7557.5 Wisconsin 462.8K 7763.8 North Carolina 459.3K 4158.1 Florida 434.6K 1859.5 Georgia 426.5K 3814.5 New York 412.0K 2073.8 Tennessee 364.3K 5040.3 Minnesota 323.5K 5584.2 Alabama 287.5K 5574.2 Missouri 283.9K 4545.7 Washington 274.2K 3445.5 South Carolina 263.0K 4800.3 Kentucky 260.6K 5679.6 New Jersey 255.4K 2688.2 Virginia 243.5K 2763.5 Massachusetts 229.8K 3220.2 Iowa 217.2K 6700.6 Arizona 193.8K 2555.9 Oregon 181.7K 4252.9 Kansas 173.0K 5823.7 Arkansas 165.0K 5342.7 Utah 155.3K 4432.6 Connecticut 154.2K 4195.8 Colorado 150.1K 2519.5 Louisiana 143.8K 3127.6 Mississippi 140.8K 4784.2 Oklahoma 139.5K 3406.3 Maryland 110.4K 1762.7 Nebraska 103.3K 5150.9 Idaho 77.4K 3866.9 New Hampshire 68.2K 4840.2 Nevada 67.7K 2071.9 Maine 51.7K 3679.7 West Virginia 46.7K 2638.4 South Dakota 44.3K 4790.9 Rhode Island 40.1K 3605.1 New Mexico 29.5K 1384.8 North Dakota 27.9K 3502.5 Vermont 27.2K 4194.3 Delaware 26.7K 2538.2 Montana 20.8K 1829.0 Hawaii 13.1K 905.9 Alaska 11.9K 1607.8 Wyoming 10.6K 1803.9 District of Columbia 1.2K 170.9

Several Southern states have also built strong manufacturing bases. North Carolina (459,300), Georgia (426,500), and Tennessee (364,300) each rank among the top states, supported by industries such as automotive, aerospace, and food processing.

Wisconsin, ranked in the top 10 for total manufacturing employment, stands out for outperforming its size. Although it’s only the 20th most populous state, its manufacturing base remains strong, thanks in part to food and dairy processing. In per capita terms, it’s number one in the nation with 7,763.8 manufacturing jobs for every 100,000 people.

Florida, another top 10 state, has emerged as a growth story. Between 2019 and 2023, the state’s manufacturing employment grew by nearly 10%, highlighting the sector’s expansion in one of the country’s largest economies.

At the other end of the spectrum, Wyoming (10,600 jobs), Alaska (11,900), and Washington, D.C. (1,200) recorded the lowest levels of manufacturing employment. The latter (D.C.) also has the lowest numbers per capita.

To learn more about Trump’s impact in his first 100 days, check out this graphic that compares S&P 500 returns during post-WWII presidents’ first 100 days.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The Fed, businesses, and consumers are all concerned over price hikes.

Worried About Prices?

Please consider the Atlanta Fed research article Worried about Tariff Passthrough onto Prices? So Are Business Execs.

Over the past couple of months, newswires have focused on the potential for elevated tariff rates to feed through into higher inflation and potentially affect output growth as well. Indeed, Chair Powell, in his last post-FOMC meeting press conference said, “What looks likely, given the scope and scale of the tariffs, is that…the risks to higher inflation, higher unemployment have increased.“

Recent research from economists at the Atlanta Fed suggests that if firms are able to pass through all the costs of tariffs, retail prices would increase significantly―as much as 1.6 percent (depending on how effective tariff rates evolve from here).

And even at a 50 percent passthrough rate, the impact on prices would be large enough to be felt in the aggregate (0.8 percent increase in retail prices). How plausible is full passthrough? Going back to the last episode with rising tariffs in 2018, research icon denoting destination link is offsite showed that the cost of the tariffs was almost entirely passed through onto domestic prices.

In this environment, where policy changes lead to sharp increases in costs for many firms, we were curious about how firms would respond, especially in light of a potential reduction in demand that typically accompanies a price hike. So, we turned to the Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations survey (BIE), a monthly survey of Sixth District firms that is well positioned to ask timely questions on economic conditions facing firms. In gathering information for the April 2025 BIE survey, we asked firms about their ability to pass through increased costs caused by a new economic policy without a resulting reduction in demand.

The interesting twist in this line of questioning is the inclusion of the phrase “Based on current levels of demand.” The interpretation here is that firms are telling us how much of the cost increase they would be able to pass through to customers before it had a negative impact on demand for that good or service.

Although a diversity of views is apparent, on average firms tell us they expect to be able to pass through 51.1 percent of a 10 percent cost increase, and 47.3 percent of a 25 percent cost increase, without reducing current levels of demand. 

In sum, firms with about normal or greater-than-normal sales expect to be able to pass through more of the cost increases while maintaining the same levels of demand for their goods or services. And figure 3 shows us that those firms are more likely to be larger firms, due to their smaller sales gap compared to “normal.” In the aggregate, business executives see their current sales levels as about 8 percentage points below “normal,” which is much weaker than firms’ relative position entering 2018. In this environment, firms on average anticipate passing through a little more than half of a 10 percent cost increase without damaging demand. It’s not yet clear where the average tariff rate will ultimately settle, or how firms’ passthrough rates will evolve from here. However, it does appear that most firms anticipate sacrificing demand should they choose to fully pass a tariff-related cost increase on to customers.

Only Three Things Can Happen

1. Corporations can pass on the tariffs

2. Corporations can eat the cost

3. A combination of the above

The Results

• To the extent corporations pass on the costs, consumers will pay the tariff. That means consumers will cut back somewhere else, exhaust savings, or go into debt.

• To the extent corporations eat the costs, that’s a direct hit on corporate profits.

• If corporations misjudge how much they can pass on, they will also take a hit on profits.

Corporate Profits

If you are thinking tariffs are a huge drain on aggregate corporate profits, then you are thinking correctly.

Fed Beige Book Shows Only 3 of 12 Regions Growing, 6 Declining

On June 5, 2025, I noted Fed Beige Book Shows Only 3 of 12 Regions Growing, 6 Declining

This report reeks of stagflation, defined as rising prices and recession simultaneously.

Prices

Prices have increased at a moderate pace since the previous report. There were widespread reports of contacts expecting costs and prices to rise at a faster rate going forward. A few Districts described these expected cost increases as strong, significant, or substantial. All District reports indicated that higher tariff rates were putting upward pressure on costs and prices. 

ISM Services Dips Into Contraction as New Orders and Backlogs Plunge

On June 4, I noted ISM Services Dips Into Contraction as New Orders and Backlogs Plunge

“The Prices Index registered 68.7 percent in May, a 3.6-percentage point increase from April’s reading of 65.1 percent; the index has elevated 7.8 percentage points in the last two months to reach its highest level since November 2022 (69.4 percent). This is the first time the index has recorded this high of a two-month increase since a 9.2-percentage point gain in February and March 2021. The May reading is also its sixth in a row above 60 percent.”

What caught my eye was a plunge in new orders and backlog of orders, yet prices rose 96 consecutive months and just accelerated.

Should the Fed Cut? Hike? Do Anything?

Many say the Fed should cut because jobs are slowing and so is inflation.

But on the basis of tariffs and general disagreement about the rate of inflation, many others stating the Fed should hike rates.

Those who are open to either stagflation or economic collapse don’t think the Fed should do anything.

I am in that camp with the side note the free market should set rates, not the Fed, not Congress, not the President.

Is the Fed in a Good Spot?

That’s what the Fed says. I am not in that camp.

The economy can tip either way suddenly and severely. And Trump’s tariff whipsaws don’t make the Fed’s life easy.

Fear of Making Mistakes

The Fed does not want to make a policy error in the wrong direction especially after blowing the massive inflation response to Congressional free money coupled with inane QE by the Fed.

So, the Fed cannot be proactive now, even if it wants to, due to FOMMtm

Trumpian Howls

The Fed has its Covid mistake in the back of its mind but a howling Trump in the foreground.

Trump howled about Jerome Powell again on June 4, as noted in Trump Demands Fed Rate Cut After Weakest ADP Payroll Report in 2 Years

ADP reported a slim 37,000 private payroll rise for May.

The payroll report on Friday temporarily halted the howls.

For discussion, please see Nonfarm Payrolls Rise by 139,000 Employment Declines by 696,000

The Fed may easily overreact or underreact. Right now the Fed looks like a deer in headlights.

Finally, the Fed will take a lot of criticism no matter what it does. And it will still have its recent policy mistakes in mind, while also having to deal with Trump.

Is this really a good place for the Fed?

Vive la resistance - in reverse. Pornhub and its sister sites YouPorn and RedTube have gone dark in France, yanking access to their content Wednesday in a dramatic protest over a government crackdown on underage users.

A screen displays a “no under-18s” sign in front of the logo of a pornographic website as regulators consider requiring such sites to ensure they are preventing minors from being exposed to their content. Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

The move comes after Aylo - the firm behind the trio of X-rated titans - hit pause on its French operations rather than comply with a new law requiring porn platforms to verify users are 18 or older.

“I can confirm that Aylo has made the difficult decision to suspend access to its user-uploaded platforms... in France,” a Pornhub spokesperson said Tuesday. “We will be using our platforms to directly address the French public tomorrow.”

Aylo, which operates some of the world’s most trafficked adult sites, is now in a standoff with France’s digital watchdog, Arcom, which has the power to block sites and fine operators who fail to screen out minors.

French officials aren’t exactly begging them to stay.

“If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our laws, they are free to do so,” Clara Chappaz, France’s junior minister for artificial intelligence and digital technology, posted bluntly on X.

According to Arcom, some 2.3 million minors access porn sites every month in France - a clear violation of laws requiring age gating. The government has demanded stricter controls, like government ID or verified digital passports.

But Aylo claims the measures would compromise user privacy and create security risks, setting up a classic clash between data protection and content regulation.

Now, French users clicking over to Pornhub are getting nothing but a cold shower - a sudden blackout that leaves millions of adults scrambling for alternatives.

Whether the blackout is a temporary gambit or a long-term exit remains unclear. But one thing’s for sure: in France, the liberté to browse adult content just got a whole lot harder to come by.

Authored by RFE/RL staff via OilPrice.com,

• The European Commission has given Bulgaria the green light to adopt the euro as of January 1, 2026, following a positive assessment of the country's economic convergence.

• Bulgaria's approval to join the eurozone represents a significant milestone in its broader integration into the European Union, following its recent entry into the Schengen Agreement.

• Despite facing political and economic challenges, Bulgaria has met the necessary criteria for euro adoption, with final decisions to be made by the Council of the EU.

The European Commission has given Bulgaria the go-ahead to join the eurozone single currency region as of January 1, 2026, the country's second major step in just one year on its path to full integration into the European Union.

The commission, which met on June 4 to convey its decision on the issue, said Bulgaria fulfils the four nominal convergence criteria that are used to evaluate whether a country is ready for euro adoption.

"The euro is a tangible symbol of European strength and unity," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The European Central Bank (ECB) also gave a positive assessment of Bulgaria's application, saying it met the criteria of currency stability, inflation, public finances, and interest rates.

“This positive assessment of convergence paves the way for Bulgaria to introduce the euro as of 1 January 2026 and become the 21st EU Member State to join the euro area,” Philip Lane, a member of the ECB Executive Board, said.

“I wish to congratulate Bulgaria on its tremendous dedication to making the adjustments needed.”

The Council of the EU will take the final decisions on euro adoption for Bulgaria, basing its decision on the opinions of the EC and the ECB, as well as from talks with the Eurogroup and European Council.

While adoption of the euro was a condition for joining the European Union, legislative failures, including reforms to combat money laundering, concerns over inflation, and political gridlock -- Bulgaria has had seven elections in the past four years -- have made the path difficult for the country.

Mass protests took place in Sofia and other cities across the country last week, and politicians said after the decision that the task now is to make sure adoption provides benefits, not disruption.

Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said the government would work to make "the process of introducing the euro smooth, predictable, predictable" and to dispel "the fears that are instilled in people and that are used for political abuse."

Added Boyko Borisov, leader of the GERB party and a former prime minister: "A huge amount of work lies ahead, especially next year, because Bulgarians should feel the benefits of the eurozone."

The decision in favor of adoption is Bulgaria’s second big step in just one year on its path to full integration into the European Union.

In January, Sofia became a full member of Schengen agreement -- and Bulgaria’s borders with neighboring Greece and Romania are now fully open.

Via Remix News,

Farmers in Spain and France were again protesting agricultural imports from Ukraine and South America under the Mercosur trade agreement ahead of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visiting France and the expiration of a free trade agreement with Ukraine, writes TopAgrar.pl.

Da Silva wants to convince President Emmanuel Macron to drop his opposition to the EU-Mercosur Agreement, and at a press conference with the French head of state, told press that he would not “leave the Mercosur presidency without having concluded the trade deal,” a position he will be taking up in a few weeks. 

Meanwhile, the French Federation of Agricultural Unions (FNSEA) has once again called on Macron to take action to create a minority in the EU to block the ratification of the Mercosur Agreement by the Council of the European Union.  

In a statement quoted by Reuters, the French organization warned that the agreement will be “devastating for the beef, poultry and sugar industries and compromise the EU’s ambitions in terms of food sovereignty.” 

“We are raising the alarm!” said Alain Carre, head of the French sugar industry group AIBS. 

If an agreement with Mercosur is reached, the French are demanding clear trade rules: “Our demands (for an EU-Mercosur deal) are simple: reciprocity of regulations, traceability of products abroad and much clearer labeling,” said Jean-Michel Schaeffer, head of French poultry industry group Anvol. 

In Spain, hundreds of farmers gathered in Madrid to protest excessive grain imports from Ukraine, which have resulted in grain prices below production costs.

“Spanish farmers will lose €1 billion this year,” Javier Fatas, leader of the farmers’ union COAG from the Aragon region in northeastern Spain, said. 

Spaniards also refuse to import genetically modified grain from Mercosur, which is cheaper than Spanish grain, into the EU.  

Similar sentiments are prevalent in Poland. In June, farmers took to the streets again to express opposition to trade liberalization with Ukraine, the Mercosur agreement, and the Green Deal, reminds TopAgrar.

“Our position should be firm and clear: the customs and limits from before the war must return. Otherwise, we will not be able to compete on the European market, and especially in Poland,” said Stanisław Barna from the grassroots All-Poland Farmers’ Protest.

At the protest in Krążkowy in Wielkopolska, another OOPR representative, Krzysztof Olejnik, called the provisions of the EU-Mercosur Agreement a “spit in the face” of farmers: “If we are talking about Mercosur, we still do not have detailed information about the terms of this agreement. We assume that the terms of this agreement will probably not be favorable for us,” said Krzysztof Olejnik.

The lack of hope for economic improvement in agriculture is combined with a sense of lack of action on the part of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Government and the European Commission. Maciej Zawadzki from the Association of Farmers of Southern Wielkopolska said, “We decided to take to the streets because our issues that were supposed to be resolved are still unresolved. The government remains passive. (…) Unfortunately, we do not see any actions that would improve our position and situation. Quite the opposite: what is happening is working to our disadvantage.”

Stanisław Barna says the only option for farmers now is to put pressure on decision-makers via protests. 

“We want to work with dignity, have a stable situation. Have a decent salary for our work (…) This is what we are reduced to, to make our farms fail. If you do not fight for yourselves, no one will do it for you! Thank you and God bless you for your determination and showing strength today. Let the government see, and Minister Siekierski will finally get down to work, because he has been talking to us for a year and a half, saying that he will prepare a position, but let him finally come to West Pomerania and talk,” he said.

Farmers also hope the newly elected president, Karol Nawrocki, will come through for them. “Mr. President, we are here, we are watching, we are waiting for your decision,” Barna added. “We farmers would like these promises to be fulfilled and not forgotten.”

Macron and Lula did not appear to make much headway on EU-Mercosur trade deal. Macron clearly wants to boost trade and relations with Brazil but he also made clear that he cannot accept the deal in its current form, emphasizing the need for “either mirror clauses or safeguard measures” to ensure Brazilian products conform with EU production standards.

Read more here...

Gun violence remains one of the most pressing public health issues in the United States.

But as Visual Capitalist;s Bruno Venditti shws in the following chart, according to data from USAFacts as of December 2023, gun-related deaths vary significantly across states, reflecting long-standing regional and demographic differences.

Preliminary numbers show that between January and August 2024, an estimated 30,100 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., 5% fewer than during the same period in 2023.

The rate of gun-related deaths in the U.S. has shifted over time. In the early 1990s, the rate fluctuated between 14.5 and 15.0 deaths per 100,000 people. From 2000 to 2014, however, that figure declined and remained below 10.5 deaths per 100,000.

By 2023, the rate rose again to 13.7 per 100,000—still 8% lower than its peak in 1993.

States With the Highest Gun Death Rates

Washington, DC recorded the highest rate in the country in 2023, with 28.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, more than 60% above the next highest state.

States With the Lowest Gun Death Rates

At the other end of the spectrum, several states reported significantly lower rates. Those include Hawaii, Utah, and Nebraska.

Although they receive less public attention than gun-related homicides, suicides have consistently made up the majority of gun deaths in the United States. In 2023, suicides accounted for 58% of all gun-related fatalities, totaling 27,300 deaths, according to CDC data. By comparison, 38% were classified as murders (17,927 deaths).

The U.S. has more guns than people, with nearly 400 million in civilian possession. In this map, we rank states by the highest percentage of gun ownership for adults.

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,

Just as the internet radically changed how America conducts business, artificial intelligence (AI) is also making waves in the workplace by taking thousands of jobs. It’s an outcome that industry experts have warned would happen, and professionals across multiple employment sectors have already been affected.

Beyond artists and content creators, AI is also impacting professionals in marketing, technology, translation, various levels of administration, and management. It has been a silent and ongoing trend for two years, but tech insiders say this is just the beginning.

A senior software engineer at Microsoft, Nandita Giri, shared her thoughts with The Epoch Times on what kind of near-term changes Americans can expect as a result of ramped-up workplace AI integration.

“AI is particularly effective at replacing routine, predictable tasks ... jobs in data entry, customer support, transcription, and logistics are the most vulnerable,” Giri said. “In software engineering, even some junior [developer] testing roles are being replaced or reshaped with AI-driven tooling. Back-office operations across health care, finance, and legal are also at high risk.”

Giri has observed a shift away from human workers in favor of AI in enterprise software development, where she said companies are quietly removing what they call “coordination overhead.” She said this is happening as AI tools become more reliable for things like task triage, scheduling, and summarization.

“AI agents have enabled a single engineer to manage what used to be a multi-person workflow, especially in automation pipelines and internal support tasks,” she said.

Restructuring Workflow

Cahyo Subroto, founder of the AI-powered data extraction platform MrScraper, agrees with this perspective.

“I’ve spent the last few years building systems that automate work, so I’ve seen firsthand where AI adds value and where it quietly pushes people out of the picture,” Subroto told The Epoch Times.

Like Giri, Subroto said that the jobs most in danger of AI replacement are those that rely heavily on structured, repetitive digital labor.

“That includes early-stage analysts, junior QA [quality assurance] testers, data entry staff, and even support roles in HR and customer service,” he said.

Subroto explained that when AI can learn workflow patterns, it can perform them faster and without the payroll cost. “At my last company, I watched a client eliminate three QA positions after switching to a tool that could auto-generate test cases and report bugs in real time.”

These decisions are based strictly on efficiency, he added. “That’s what makes this shift so difficult to stop.”

In January, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released a report that estimated 92 million jobs would be displaced by AI by 2030. The think tank surveyed more than 1,000 of the world’s largest employers, accounting for 22 industry groups and more than 14 million workers.

There is a silver lining, however. The WEF—and many others—predict that AI will also create new jobs and reshape existing positions, allowing current employees in various sectors to focus on more high-value tasks instead of routine work.

A robot sprinkles cheese over a pizza at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence of the University of Bremen, Germany, on March 8, 2017. Ingo Wagner/dpa/AFP via Getty Images

Jobs with declining demand include customer service representatives, claims adjusters, bank tellers, graphic designers, accountants, and auditors, the WEF report said.

Subroto believes much of the shift toward AI will be subtle. “Instead of replacing people, we’re restructuring the workflow to rely on AI for the mechanical parts, while humans take on broader accountability.”

“That’s a harder conversation because it’s not about job loss. It’s about job transformation, and not everyone will be equipped and ready to make that jump,” he said.

Big Changes Ahead

In May, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 3 percent of its employees across the board, affecting roughly 6,000 people. In a statement to CNBC, a spokesperson for the tech giant said, “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.” The spokesperson confirmed that the job cuts weren’t related to worker performance.

It’s reportedly the largest series of layoffs at Microsoft since 2023.

This arrives on the heels of reported cuts at Amazon, which in January said it would lay off what it called a “small number” of its communications and sustainability employees. It followed that by announcing in March plans to eliminate 14,000 managerial positions by early next year.

Among those who lost their job at Microsoft is former senior data scientist Tatiana Teppoeva, founder and CEO of One Nonverbal Ecosystem. She told The Epoch Times that increased tech layoffs alongside the rise of AI integration is an industry red flag.

“This has sparked genuine concerns over the future need for human programmers and signals a real, accelerating shift in how companies evaluate which human roles are essential,” Teppoeva said.

Like Giri and Subroto, Teppoeva identified industries that have a lot of unchanging, rules-based tasks like back-end software development, data entry, finance, and logistics as areas with a high probability of AI job replacement.

“The most realistic near-term disruption is task-level automation, not full job replacement,” she said. “For example, in sales, AI tools can draft outreach emails or analyze deal data, but they cannot replicate the human-to-human trust, nonverbal signals, and presence that close high-ticket deals.”

Teppoeva said the human-AI gap is now a point of focus for her business. “Helping sales teams, executives, and companies align their human communication, body language, voice, [and] nonverbal presence [is] what advanced AI tools still can’t do,” she said, then added, “At least not yet.”

On June 2, a Midwest-based web content manager for a major U.S. company—who asked to be identified only as “Tom”—was laid off with the rest of his department and most of the company’s marketing staff. Tom requested the company not be identified out of fear it could affect his severance.

Having worked in web development for more than 15 years, Tom said he saw the “AI blitz” coming and had a gut hunch it would only be a matter of time before he was made redundant.

“The worst part is the lack of honesty,” Tom said. “Companies aren’t being straight with people, they’re just saying things like ’sales are down‘ or ’we need to improve efficiency,' but the reality is it’s about increasing profit by any means.”

Tom said he has a friend who spent nearly two decades working in marketing and kept up with changing industry trends before being laid off a year ago because of AI integration.

“There are entire careers with university degrees behind them that are ending now,” Tom said.

“It’s not necessarily a one-to-one ratio,” he added. “Maybe an AI tool automates half of a department’s workload. That means you can redistribute the remaining work amongst a smaller team.”

Since the Hollywood writers’ strike in 2023, the potential for AI to disrupt careers has been under a microscope, and it’s easy to see why. Out of more than 80,000 jobs cut in May 2023, nearly 4,000 were due to AI, according to a layoffs report from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, Inc.

The trend continued last year. In 2024, the Society of Authors surveyed 12,500 workers in different creative industries, revealing many had already lost work to AI. According to the survey, 26 percent of illustrators and 36 percent of translators had already lost work because of generative AI.

Tesla co-founder Elon Musk also shared his views on AI job replacement during the Viva Technology conference in Paris in 2024, following news that Tesla planned to lay off 10 percent of its workforce.

A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the Tesla logo are seen in this image from Jan. 23, 2025. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters

“If the computer and robot can do everything better than you, what meaning does your life have? ... In a negative scenario ... we’re in deep trouble,” Musk said.

Other tech insiders share this point of view. During an episode of “The Artificial Intelligence” show, Marketing AI Institute founder Paul Roetzer said AI is fundamentally reshaping the human workforce.

“It’s not like we’re drawing some difficult-to-find conclusion here,” Roetzer said when discussing Microsoft’s most recent layoffs. “If the CTO [chief technology officer] of the company is saying that within five years we expect 95 percent of all code to be written by AI, then what do you need a bunch of engineers for?”

Subroto used an example from his work, describing the use of AI for “task sequencing and code generation,” which allowed his company to launch features faster and fix bugs before users even saw them. However, he said the improved work efficiency came at the cost of no longer needing manual testers checking outputs line by line.

“These were smart, capable people, and yet the structure of the work changed so much that their role no longer made sense,” he said.

The current phase-out of human work roles due to increased AI efficiency is nuanced, but some don’t think it will stay that way for much longer.

A McKinsey Global Institute analysis from July 2023 predicted that 30 percent of total hours worked could be absorbed by generative AI by 2030. Researchers estimated that 11.8 million employees working in sectors with shrinking demand may need to shift into other departments, while roughly 9 million may need to change careers entirely.