(The Center Square) – Amid fears that artificial intelligence technology is taking people’s jobs, one new bill in California aims to determine the impacts on the labor force in the coming years.
Assembly Bill 2545, authored by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita, proposes to research the effects the rapidly-developing technology has on California’s labor force and jobs across industries.
The bill would establish a new program under the California Employment Development Department, which the bill calls the California Artificial Intelligence Worker Impact Data Assessment Project. The project would study the impact of A.I. on the labor force and provide policy recommendations for how the legislature can support workers impacted by A.I., according to the text of the bill.
“It’s good we’re just studying it,” Spence Purnell, senior technology and innovation fellow at R Street Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., told The Center Square Friday. “There’s been sort of a tendency across the states to maybe jump the gun on A.I. regulation.”
Purnell said that A.I. has replaced certain jobs in larger numbers, particularly software developers, customer service representatives, accountants, auditors, receptionists, information clerks and other roles that have highly repetitive tasks or that are easily automated.
“Those are certainly the most exposed,” Purnell said. “Jobs that have been less exposed have been more human-to-human jobs, like sales and management. Those jobs tend to be more human skills, interpersonal skills, and those are much less automatable.”
That can include higher-level positions that require early-career work experience, Purnell added, which poses a problem for young workers who now face a job market where A.I. is replacing entry-level jobs. However, Purnell said he sees other opportunities for young workers to get the experience they need to eventually move up into middle-career and senior-level positions in professions like software development.
“But it’s not all doom and gloom,” Lisa Countryman-Quiroz, CEO of JVS Bay Area, wrote to The Center Square via email on Friday. “There are plenty of job openings in healthcare and the skilled trades, sectors that are inherently AI-resistant because they require hands-on, human skills.”
As white collar jobs shrink in California, opportunities for blue collar work are going up, Countryman-Quiroz added.
“AI can be an opportunity for jobseekers who are proactive about learning new skills and rethinking what career path is right for them,” she said.
According to a legislative analysis of the bill, A.I. technology mimics human intelligence and can accomplish tasks normally performed by humans. Multiple reports, including one used by the author of the bill from Chicago-based firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, shows that A.I. was involved in the elimination of 142 jobs in December 2025. As of the publication of that report in December 2025, 54,836 jobs were at risk of being eliminated in all of 2025 because of A.I.
Approximately 71,825 jobs were cut between 2023 and December 2025 because of A.I., according to that report.
That could have significant tax implications for governments. A study from the RAND Corporation shows that in 2024, 84% of federal revenue came from individual income taxes or payroll taxes. These labor-based sources of tax revenue for the federal government could be significantly reduced under most economic scenarios detailed in the RAND study. None of the scenarios outlined in the report gave raw dollar amounts for the amount of money that could be lost in revenue to the federal government.
However, theoretically, if A.I. had replaced enough jobs in 2024 to wipe out 84% of the federal government’s revenue that year, $4.116 trillion would have been reduced from federal revenue that year.
The Congressional Budget Office reports that the federal government received $4.9 trillion in revenues, of which almost half was from individual income taxes.
According to the most recent bill analysis for Assembly Bill 2545, the only group listed as opposed to the bill unless amended is the California Chamber of Commerce. However, a representative of the chamber told The Center Square via email on Friday afternoon that the chamber is no longer opposed to the bill after recent amendments were made to the bill.
“We’re neutral,” John Myers, senior vice president of communications and external affairs at the California Chamber of Commerce, wrote to The Center Square in the email. “And again, I would refer to the 4/14 amendments as addressing our concerns.”
Myers did not elaborate on the chamber’s changed position on the bill when asked for a more complete response.
Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, the author of the bill, did not respond to The Center Square on Friday. The bill would sunset on Jan. 1, 2027.
