New York Bill Could Create the Nation's First System for Tracking AI-Related Job Layoffs

New York may soon require employers to answer one of the central questions in the debate over artificial intelligence and work: what is AI actually doing to jobs?

In June 2026, the New York State Legislature passed the AI Labor Information Act (S.8706B / A.9581B), a bill that would require covered employers to report annually on how their use of AI is affecting hiring, layoffs, hours, and workplace tasks. The legislation, introduced by New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey, now awaits signature by Governor Kathy Hochul.

If signed, it would create the first mandatory AI labor-impact reporting requirement of its kind in the United States. 

The bill requires employers to disclose information to the state about how AI is being used and how that use is affecting workers. The bill is premised on a simple proposition: before lawmakers can decide how to regulate AI’s effect on the labor market, they need reliable data about what is actually happening.

“AI is here, and there are important, beneficial ways to use it, but there’s also a real downside, especially given how fast it’s moving in the labor market,” said Senator Hinchey, the author and sponsor of the bill.

The AI Labor Information Act would apply to any business entity operating in New York with more than 50 employees, as well as any publicly traded entity regardless of size.

Covered businesses would be required to submit annual reports to the New York State Department of Labor by March 1 of each year.

The required disclosures would include estimates of the number of employees who were displaced or hired, or whose hours increased or decreased, due in whole or in part to the employer’s use of AI. Employers would also have to report the number of positions left unfilled because of AI, describe the tasks being performed by AI systems, and explain what human oversight measures, if any, are in place. Failure to report can result in penalties up to $500 per day.

The bill that passed the Legislature contained significant changes from a prior bill Senator Hinchey first introduced in 2025, which included a direct tax on companies that reduced their workforce due to AI replacement.

“Originally, we wanted a corporate tax on businesses that displaced workers with AI, with that revenue going to help cover the gap it created,” Senator Hinchey said. “But the honest question we kept getting back was, if you raise that tax, where does the money actually go? We didn’t have a clean enough answer, so we took that piece out.”

Oliver Roberts, Co-Director of the AI Collaborative at WashU Law and Founder of Wickard.ai, said removing the tax was essential.

“Companies should not be penalized for adopting technologies that improve productivity and competitiveness,” added Roberts, who worked with Senator Hinchey on revisions to the legislation before the revised bill was introduced.

After passing both chambers of the Legislature, the revised bill now awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature or veto.

The urgency behind the AI Labor Information Act reflects uncertainty about the scale of AI’s workforce effects.

Recent data suggests AI is contributing to major workforce reduction. As of July 1, 2026, SkillSyncer has recorded 267 layoff events, eliminating more than 185,000 jobs across tech, finance, healthcare, and other sectors. According to SkillSyncer, 56% of those events explicitly cited AI or automation as a contributing cause.

Public company disclosures are also beginning to draw the connection more directly. On June 22, 2026, Oracle disclosed in its annual SEC filing that its global workforce had fallen from 162,000 to 141,000 employees over its fiscal year, a reduction of roughly 21,000 workers. The filing separately stated that “the adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations has resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.”

Other companies and professional services firms have made similar moves. Block CEO Jack Dorsey reduced the company’s headcount from approximately 10,000 to fewer than 6,000, explicitly attributing the move to AI in a shareholder letter. Baker McKenzie cut between 600 and 1,000 employees in February as part of a shift toward AI tools.

Yet other data complicates the picture. Gallup polling published in June 2026 found that only 1% of laid-off workers identified AI as the primary reason for their layoff. Gallup noted that this figure may understate AI’s indirect effect because AI can enable broader restructuring decisions that employers do not label as AI-driven.

That underreporting problem is precisely what advocates of the AI Labor Information Act say the bill is designed to address.

Critics do not necessarily dispute that AI will affect the labor market. Their concern is whether the AI Labor Information Act asks employers to answer questions that may be too ambiguous.

David Kertai, a research assistant at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, raised significant doubts about whether the bill can produce reliable data.

“Determining when AI contributes to workforce reductions is ambiguous because, outside of clear cases such as replacing customer support agents with chatbots, most AI tools act as productivity enhancers rather than direct substitutes for labor,” Kertai said.

He added that because the bill does not distinguish between AI that replaces workers and AI that augments their productivity, “the resulting data would be inconsistent and fail to capture the real dynamics of AI in the workplace.”

In his view, policymakers should focus less on mandatory disclosure and more on upskilling and retraining programs.

Kevin Frazier, an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, echoed those concerns.

“The Act’s primary focus on attempting to quantify how AI is changing business practices risks gathering information that's likely to be inaccurate, unhelpful, or both,” Frazier said.

 Without a precise and standardized means of assessing those metrics across firms, he warned, “the aggregated information may lead lawmakers to draw faulty conclusions,” which is a risk he said is compounded by how rapidly AI itself evolves within the span of a single reporting year.

Rather than relying primarily on employer self-reporting, Frazier suggested that New York should consider partnering with AI labs to obtain more timely insights into AI use.

The AI Labor Information Act now sits with Governor Hochul, who has not yet taken a public position on it.

Governor Hochul’s record on AI legislation is mixed. She signed the RAISE Act after negotiating amendments that softened some developer requirements. She has also signed several AI transparency measures. But she vetoed the New York Health Information Privacy Act over concerns that it was unworkable.

Senator Hinchey said the legislation has already gone through years of discussion and amendment before clearing both chambers. By law, Governor Hochul has until the end of the year to sign or veto the bill.

If the bill is signed into law, the first employer submissions would be due March 1, 2027. This means covered employers would need to start tracking AI’s effect on their workforce for the rest of 2026, whether or not their reporting systems are ready.