Is This the New 'Scariest Chart in the World'? (www.derekthompson.org)

A viral chart shows an unprecedented split since late 2022: while the S&P 500 is up roughly 70–75% since October/November 2022, total job postings have fallen about one-third. Both numbers are real and historically unusual—the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) record shows nothing like this divergence. The contrast has been widely framed as “AI supercharging stocks while crushing jobs,” but closer analysis complicates that story. Testing the AI explanation reveals important nuances: job listings actually peaked in March 2022, coinciding with the Federal Reserve’s rate-hike campaign aimed at cooling demand, and the steepest drops in postings have been in manufacturing, construction, and energy—not the Information sector. Employ America’s breakdown shows the Information super-sector has seen the smallest decline, undermining the idea that AI alone is driving broad hiring collapses. At the same time, AI-related firms have driven most market gains—JP Morgan attributes ~75% of S&P returns and ~80% of earnings growth since ChatGPT’s debut to AI-linked stocks—raising bubble concerns and highlighting concentrated gains. The takeaway for the AI/ML community: AI is reshaping capital allocation and market narratives (and boosting demand for frontier compute), but macro policy, tariffs, and capital-cost dynamics explain much of the labor-market weakness; the reality is a two-speed economy, not simple causation.