This week the world lost a true original. Dolly Parton was warm-hearted and wildly talented.  She was a pop icon and a music legend. Dolly passed on Tuesday at the age of 80 after what her family called a brief battle with cancer.

The reach of Dolly was wide, as evidenced by the outpouring of tributes - from John Mayer to Eminem to Miley Cyrus. Even the King's Guard stood in front of Buckingham Palace in full red uniform and played "9 to 5" at the Changing of the Guard. The Royal Family posted: "We will always ❤️ you." Flags are at half-staff through Tuesday, the Opry hosts a tribute show Saturday night, and her U.S. streams are up 2,320% in a day.  9 to 5 debuting at No. 3 on Spotify.

Dolly wrote the song on the 9 to 5 movie set. The timeless anthem went to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in February of 1981.  This was the only solo pop No. 1 of her career. And she was only the second woman ever to top the country and pop charts with the same single. The tune won two Grammys and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, where it lost to "Fame." The movie was the second-biggest film of 1980, behind only The Empire Strikes Back. It was the first mainstream feminist movie, and it had the whole world rooting for three secretaries to defeat the sexist creepy boss. You go, girl!

In addition to paying tribute to a legend, we are using the song to discuss a popular topic today - artificial intelligence's impact on the work week. Will AI help or hurt the US work force? Who will survive? Will we ever move to a shorter work week?

Nobody knows for sure. But we are avid AI users, business owners, and we are laser-focused on keeping up with the progress of AI. So, let's start where we always start: with the data.

The labor market has quietly stopped moving. In June, the hires rate was 3.3% of employment, and the quits rate was 2.0% -  both below where they sat in 2019. The pain is concentrated exactly where you'd expect if machines were doing entry-level work - college graduates it's 5.6%, with 42% of them underemployed. Stanford's Digital Economy Lab, working from ADP payroll records, finds employment for 22-to-25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed occupations running about 19% below where it should be.   The current trend is reduced hiring, not firing. 

And this is all happening in the face of enormous corporate earnings. S&P 500 second-quarter earnings grew 32% year over year. It is rare for earnings to grow this fast with so little hiring - in the past, corporations would staff-up to deal with the growth. Or is the record growth because of the lack of hiring? Either way, we believe this is largely AI related.

AI Benchmarks are imperfect, but they can provide insights into the progress of AI to complete human tasks. One useful benchmark is GDP Val.   The index has Ai complete 1,320 real deliverables across 44 occupations and is graded blind against human experts.  AI passed the 50% human-parity line in the last year and now scores around 85%. 

On legal research, where somebody ran the head-to-head, leading tools score 79–81% against a measured practicing-lawyer baseline of 71%. Law firms have leaned-in accordingly: Clio's 2026 survey puts adoption at 71% of solo practitioners and 86% of mid-sized firms.

In finance it's a different story. The best model gets 61% of a realistic analyst workload right.  At Lear, We use AI all day and, while we are still hiring, we are WAY more efficient with AI. I suspect it has saved us from hiring two or three people. It is clear people using AI still beat AI working alone.  But, for how long?   And will there ever be a Fortune 500 one-person company? 

If you work as an attendant at a golf course, you're probably safe. Anything involving hands, bodies, weather, or an unhappy customer has a long runway. But if your day is answering phones, writing content, drafting legal documents, or building spreadsheets, you may want to have coffee with a career counselor.

If a machine can do the work or assist with your work, does the week get shorter? Let’s look at history of work hours.  The average American worked 2,022 hours a year in 1950 and 1,789 in 2023 - but almost all that decline happened before 1980. Hours have been essentially flat for forty-five years. The 40-hour week Dolly sang about is still the 40-hour week today. 

Bill Gates has been the most outspoken about a shorter work week.  We pulled three quotes from his recent article titled The Turbulent AI era is here. The Choice we make now are critical:

We agree with the last one.  If work week gets shorter and humans get replaced, then where will income come from?  The government with $40 trillion in debt?  It is time to start forming a game plan. 

We will adapt, and the growth will be gradual - but changing behavior may take a generation, and the younger one seems less motivated by money and power than we were. In Deloitte's 2026 survey of 22,595 Gen Z and millennial workers, the No. 1 career goal was work-life balance; only 6% named reaching a leadership position. Robert Walters found 52% don't want to be middle managers at all. Read one way, that's an unmotivated workforce open to less hours and work. Read another way, it's a workforce that watched their parents get drained from working 9 to 5 for a rich man's game.  Wonder if this all plays into the rise of socialism?

It is too early to tell when/if AI will replace many office workers. What we can see is a hiring rate that has slowed, record profits earned by fewer people, and an AI capability curve that keeps doubling.

Three thousand songs. Twenty-five country No. 1s. Eleven Grammys. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Three hundred million books in the hands of children who couldn't afford them. And one perfect three-minute song about how working life, written on a movie set with a set of fingernails.

RIP Dolly…You go, girl. 

Rick Lear

Rick Lear is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Lear Investment Management.

This material is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Statistics cited are from third-party sources believed to be reliable but are not guaranteed. Please consult your own advisor regarding your particular situation.