200,000 US Creative Jobs Gone in Four Years. Is AI to Blame?
A new analysis estimates that more than 200,000 jobs have disappeared from US media, film, and arts industries over the past four years. But the same period saw strikes, industry consolidation, and production moving overseas, which makes AI's share of the damage hard to isolate.
More than 200,000 jobs in US media, film, and arts industries have vanished over the past four years, according to a new analysis. Economic analyst Joseph Politano published the estimate in a September 27 post on Apricitas. Politano noted that it is difficult to break out AI’s specific contribution as a separate number.
What exactly do those 200,000 jobs cover?
The 200,000 figure comes from Politano bundling several creative industries together into a single count. That scope differs from the numbers the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes for any one industry on its own.
The steepest decline is in motion picture and video production. According to the BLS, employment in that industry in early 2026 is roughly 100,000 jobs below its October 2022 peak. The sector had clawed back the jobs it lost during the pandemic to hit that peak, then shrank again.
Strikes, offshore production, and other causes
The BLS has attributed part of the employment drop in motion picture and video production to the strikes that began in 2023. Politano also points to industry consolidation, production moving overseas, and competition from social media. The analysis is that production activity and the broader business environment were both disrupted during the period when the jobs disappeared.
The analysis does not say how many jobs were lost because of AI. Politano states that AI’s effect is hard to separate from the other causes and turn into a figure. The 200,000 represents the total scale of job losses across the related industries.
Are freelancers counted?
They are not. These statistics count jobs that appear on employer payrolls. Self-employed workers and independent freelancers fall outside the count. Conversely, a single person listed on the payrolls of multiple employers can be counted as two jobs.
For anyone working in a creative field or hoping to break into one, these numbers are a signal that employment in the related US industries has contracted. Declines in payroll jobs and changes in freelance work are measured separately to begin with.
The question this analysis leaves open is how much of the decline in creative employment can be attributed to AI. Working out how to separate AI’s impact from other causes such as strikes or offshore production remains the challenge. It is also worth watching how employment and freelance work in comparable industries in Korea shift from here.