California launches first public dashboard tracking AI job losses

California launched the California AI-Unemployment Tracker on June 25, the nation’s first public dashboard on AI-related job losses, even as its first readings showed no broad surge in unemployment tied to highly AI-exposed work. Governor Gavin Newsom called the California AI-Unemployment Tracker a first-in-the-nation early warning system, built to monitor, track and anticipate how artificial intelligence is affecting jobs.

The dashboard was developed with the University of California, the California Policy Lab and the California Employment Development Department. It will be updated monthly and is meant to show where AI is intersecting with the labor market in near real time, so policymakers can see pressure building before it spreads.

The tracker connects unemployment insurance claims with measures of occupational AI exposure, then breaks the data down by industry, region, education and demographic group. That kind of detail can help direct job-search support, retraining, upskilling and health-coverage guidance to the places where workers are most likely to need it.

The early signal is mixed. A California Policy Lab report from UCLA found no evidence as of May 2026 of a statewide surge in layoffs among workers in highly AI-exposed occupations. At the same time, the report found early signs of disruption among college-educated workers in those jobs and among workers in highly exposed occupations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Till von Wachter, the faculty director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA and a professor of economics, said the tracker is designed to replace speculation with evidence and give policymakers early signals as AI-driven change appears.

The launch came after Newsom’s May 21 executive order directing California to prepare workers, small businesses and communities for potential AI disruption.