US Productivity Nearly Doubled Its Decade Average in 2025
AI-exposed sectors drove a 2.7% productivity jump while quietly freezing entry-level hiring pipelines.
The numbers are in, and they're striking. US productivity grew roughly 2.7% in 2025 — nearly double the 1.4% annual average logged over the previous decade.
The kicker? Sectors most exposed to AI simultaneously pulled back on entry-level hiring. That's not a coincidence. It's a pattern.
According to analysis by Erik Brynjolfsson in the Financial Times, the data points to a genuine inflection point. The US economy appears to be crossing from the "AI hype" phase into one where the technology delivers measurable, tangible economic gains.
Fewer junior hires. More output per worker. The productivity math is working — at least on paper.
The big question nobody's answering yet: what happens to the entry-level workforce pipeline when AI keeps eating the bottom rungs of the ladder?