New York AI bill would make employers report jobs they never filled

A bill sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul would require New York employers to report a form of AI workforce impact that usually leaves little trace: jobs they did not fill because the technology took over the work.

The reporting would also cover employees displaced by AI, reductions in hours, roles created or expanded by the technology, and the business goals behind a company's use of AI, according to Spectrum News, which reported in early September that state Sen. Michelle Hinchey was pressing Hochul to sign it.

The unfilled-jobs category is the unusual one. A displaced worker shows up as a separation; a role that is never opened, or a vacancy quietly absorbed, does not. The bill would ask employers to put a number on that second kind of decision as well, along with hours cut from people who kept their jobs.

Hinchey has pitched the bill as groundwork rather than restriction. She said the data would help lawmakers prepare workers for future jobs and design protections for the state's workforce. That framing has drawn support from outside the usual coalition: Upstate United backs the measure, and its executive director, Justin Wilcox, said the approach gathers information before setting policy, Spectrum News reported. The bill passed with bipartisan support.

Hochul's office responded by pointing to her AI policy commission and to an executive order establishing a one-year moratorium on data centers, saying her administration is reviewing broader legislation.

The clock on that review is set. The Legislature closed its 2026 session by sending Hochul a slate of AI measures, including bills on children's chatbot safety, AI training data transparency, the FAIR News Act, a data center moratorium and a ban on AI-assisted surveillance pricing, and she has until Dec. 31 to act on them, according to the Transparency Coalition. She has already moved on part of that slate: on Oct. 28 she signed a law restricting unsafe AI companion chatbot features for users under 18, BK Reader reported.

Her administration is also building its own source of AI workforce information. Hochul has announced the AI Jobs Institute, a Queens-based training hub designed and powered by the workforce training organization Pursuit, which her press release said will "train 40,000 New Yorkers by 2032" and produce real-world data and recommendations for state and federal AI workforce strategies, according to FOX 5 New York. That effort draws its data from a training program; the Hinchey bill would compel it from employers.

How Hochul treats employer reporting mandates is a matter of recent record. On Oct. 28 she signed a cannabis labor bill eliminating mandatory labor-peace agreements while negotiating amendments to remove a proposed wage board and additional ownership-disclosure requirements, MJBizDaily reported. "The bill, as passed, would create uncertainty in the industry by imposing a burdensome reporting requirement on applicants, and by creating a wage board that could raise costs for licensees and drive consumers to the illicit market," Hochul wrote in her memorandum. Lawmakers agreed to pursue those changes next session. Until they do, the provisions remain in the signed law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 31, 2027, a sign that a signature from Hochul does not always settle what a bill will finally require.