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Adaptation · Labour & consumers

California unemployment claims from AI-exposed occupations

consistent with normal70/95 confidence, good evidence, some ambiguitygrade Aleading

1What this measures

Month-on-month change in the three-month moving average of new initial unemployment claims from high-AI-exposure occupations in California (potential-exposure measure), from the California Policy Lab and EDD tracker.

Why it matters. Administrative claims data, not a survey and not a profile scrape; the closest thing to a real-time separations signal.

Proxy types
deployment, welfare
Unit
share
Cadence
monthly
Valve
adoption to adaptation

2How we track this

Normal band
≤ 2.0%
Fast band
≥ 5.0%
Falsifying
—

Normal = monthly moves of up to 2% in the smoothed series, the noise floor of claims data; fast = 5% or more month on month, sustained. Between is `emerging`.

Applied to edd.ca_high_exposure.claims_3mma_mom.m.

3Tracker interpretation

Claims from exposed occupations are drifting up about a percent a month, in line with California's overall labour market, not ahead of it.

4Evidence

Latest point
1.0%as of 2026-07-31
ca_high_exposure
Value the bands apply to
1.0%as of 2026-07-31

2 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

5Status and reasoning

consistent with normalsince 2026-09-10 · claude-initial-seed

California AI-Unemployment Tracker, July 2026 data (California Policy Lab; identical release on the EDD site): the 3-month moving average of high-AI-exposure initial claims rose about 1.0% month on month (52,300 to 52,800). Inside the normal band (<=2%). Initial seed.

6Timeline notes

  • 2026-07-31 ca_high_exposure · 1.0%as of 2026-07-31

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

One state; exposure measured at occupation level; claims respond to the business cycle first.

8Update history

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 70 · claude-initial-seed

    California AI-Unemployment Tracker, July 2026 data (California Policy Lab; identical release on the EDD site): the 3-month moving average of high-AI-exposure initial claims rose about 1.0% month on month (52,300 to 52,800). Inside the normal band (<=2%). Initial seed.

    obs:70a29302

9Confidence

70 / 95 — good evidence, some ambiguity

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.

10Related