AI is already shrinking the slice of the pie workers get, even in industries where pay is actually going up.
SSRN · March 18, 2026 · 6339038
The Takeaway
Even though airline workers saw wage increases after the pandemic, their share of the airline's 'surplus' profit has dropped in areas with high AI exposure. It reveals that AI suppresses worker bargaining power by creating a credible threat of replacement long before the actual jobs are automated away.
From the abstract
Has the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution already begun to reshape the airline labor market? Following the COVID-19 pandemic, airline workers experienced rapid wage increases amid acute labor shortages. At the same time, the emergence of generative AI after 2022 introduced new technological expectations that may have altered bargaining conditions. This study examines how the distribution of quasi-rents between airlines and workers has evolved over the period 2000-2024. We construct feasibl