Someone posted a chart titled ‘GG everyone’, a neat, attention-grabbing image that seems to say, in no uncertain terms, that AI (and by extension ChatGPT) walked onto the stage and the job market promptly left the building. It’s the kind of visual shorthand the internet loves: a sharp drop in job openings with a ChatGPT label sitting conveniently nearby. Dramatic. Shareable. Probably misleading.
Here’s the cleaner narrative beneath the meme. The peak in US job openings was in March 2022, roughly 12 million. That same month the Federal Reserve began an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes to wrestle down inflation (see the Fed funds rate history at https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-chart). Job openings started a steady descent immediately after. ChatGPT, by contrast, was released to the public on November 30, 2022 (https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt) — eight months later. In short, the decline was already underway long before generative AI entered the public lexicon.
Meanwhile, Reddit was busy debating the usual: correlation does not equal causation; maybe CEOs are using AI as a scapegoat for layoffs; perhaps the S&P 500’s recent shine is mostly due to a handful of AI-era winners. A few comments pulled the thread taut in useful ways. One community member neatly outlined the timeline and Fed-driven mechanics; another noted that a few tech giants have been doing most of the heavy lifting for the market’s performance; and a third suggested companies over-hired during COVID and subsequently needed an excuse to recalibrate. The original post and image are here for reference (https://reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1nvyg1o/gg_everyone/).
Why this matters
The image is a textbook example of a compelling story told with selective visual cues. It’s seductive: connect a new tool to a visible social pain and the narrative writes itself. But good analysis asks what happened first, and what mechanisms plausibly link cause and effect. In this case, monetary policy and post-pandemic business corrections are more plausible drivers of the job-openings decline than the late-2022 release of consumer-facing generative AI.
That does not mean AI is irrelevant. Humans, being the curious creatures that they are, notice when a technology promises to automate white-collar work. Over time, AI could reshape roles in admin, operations, and parts of software development. Several commenters pointed out legitimate future risks: wage compression for mediocre specialists, displacement of certain back-office jobs, and the slow-but-real efficiency gains enterprises will pursue. But these are medium-term structural questions, not an immediate job market collapse that coincided neatly with ChatGPT’s public launch.
High-value community takeaways
- One comment succinctly mapped the timeline: March 2022 peak in job openings, Fed hikes start same month, ChatGPT released Nov 2022, highlighting a classic correlation versus causation pitfall.
- Another argued that S&P growth has been concentrated in a few ‘shovel sellers’ of the AI goldrush, masking broader economic weakness.
- A third observed that COVID-era over-hiring gave companies cover to downsize, and AI hype makes for a convenient public rationale.
What to watch next
Policy and markets will matter far more in the near term than whether your coworker can prompt a bot to draft a spreadsheet. If interest rates fall and business investment resumes, job openings could recover. If adoption of AI tools accelerates inside enterprises, expect a slower, sector-specific labor reshuffle rather than an overnight elimination of roles.
The takeaway, if there is one, is that charts with tidy narrative labels are great conversation starters but poor verdicts on causality. The conversation on Reddit was useful precisely because it moved beyond the meme, pointed to timelines and policy, and reminded everyone that the world is messier than a single-image punchline.
So yes: GG to the meme. But for anyone deciding career moves or policy prescriptions, take a breath, check the dates, and maybe read the Fed minutes before blaming your boss on behalf of a bot.
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