Yeah I can only think of 3 ways AI is causing unemployment-
1) Hype, as you said, leading to delayed hiring.
2) Offshore workers using AI becoming more competitive.
3) Reallocation of capital to AI projects, which skews demand towards data scientists at the expense of, say, front-end devs (who ironically might have provided better return).
None of these are actually reducing the amount of human workers needed, but the social and economic impact is real.
1) Hype, as you said, leading to delayed hiring.
2) Offshore workers using AI becoming more competitive.
3) Reallocation of capital to AI projects, which skews demand towards data scientists at the expense of, say, front-end devs (who ironically might have provided better return).
None of these are actually reducing the amount of human workers needed, but the social and economic impact is real.