AI’s not taking all the jobs. Just ask your local hobby shop, garage band and crafts store

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A former auto parts store in Minnesota. A two-car garage in Los Angeles. And two color-bathed shops – one in Seattle, another in Concord, New Hampshire.

Welcome to the latest hotbeds of American job creation, fueled by a notable shift in how consumers are spending their discretionary dollars.

They are home bases for creative enterprises – a community-focused game store, a rock band, a hand-dyed yarn business and an upstart fabric outfit.

And they are brimming with creative energy (and sales) as more consumers seek “little treats,” after years of high inflation have compounded to push bigger purchases – including cars and homes – out of reach. The trend is helped as young people embrace “grandma hobbies” and flock to in-person events at a time when artificial intelligence encroaches on many aspects of life.

As a result, hobby stores, musical artists and sewing shops have turned into mini job-generating engines within a lackluster labor market.

These three categories saw the largest percentage employment gains respective to their individual labor forces during the 18 months ending in June, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

During that period, hobby, toy and game retailers added 35,000 jobs, a 29% increase; musical groups and artists added 9,000, a 25% increase; and sewing, needlework and piece goods retailers added 7,000 jobs, a 24% increase, according to BLS data.

These creative businesses may make up just a whisper (0.15%) of the overall labor force, but they’re punching well above their weight: Their combined gains accounted for 9% of all jobs added across the labor market during the 18-month period.

In the former auto parts store in Bloomington, Minnesota, gone are the wiper blades, the motor oil, the batteries, the back stock.

In their place are a trove of wares – board games, miniatures, collectibles, Pokémon cards – and a dozen tables for communal play.

The bright and airy 5,000-square-foot shop opened in April and marked the second location for Tower Games, which has operated a smaller store in Minneapolis since 2007. The new shop has been years in the making, said Bob Seabold, who has owned Tower since 2015.

Courtesy Robert Seabold

“We really started to do well in 2019 and then Covid hit,” he said. “Not that I’d want to repeat it, but it turned out really good for (sales).”

The money people were spending on travel went instead to areas such as in-home hobbies and games .

“My thought was, ‘Will it stick? Is it a fad?’” he said.

Spending at hobby, toy and game stores was up 27% in July from a year ago, according to data provided to CNN by PNC Economic Research. A separate report from consumer analytics firm Circana showed that hobby-oriented categories (including the fast-growing sports and trading card business) drove growth for US toy industry sales, which hit a six-year high in the first half of this year.

“People just want things that bring them joy and want a little break; they want to do things that are relaxing,” said Kristen McLean, Circana’s vice president of client insights.

Beyond hobbies, games and collectibles, consumers have gravitated toward beauty, self-care, cookbooks, small appliances and home goods, she said.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

“People aren’t selling their house, so they’re investing in their house,” she said, referencing the deep chill running through the US housing industry. “It’s too expensive to go out, so there is this weird echo of the pandemic right now, but for different reasons.”

As sales picked up at Tower, Seabold’s workforce has grown to 29 employees between the two locations. Brittany Steffen, a longtime vet tech , is one of the newest part-time additions.

“At the beginning of the year, I had a friend pass away suddenly, and it just felt like life is too short,” said Steffen, 37, who works on the sales floor and runs a monthly painting competition. “I really want to do something that makes me happy and brings me joy and branch out and do different things.”

In a two-car garage in the Westchester neighborhood of L.A., Juan Kuschevatzky sat on a bargain Ashdown amp cabinet, using the vibrations to better hear his bass.

Early last year, Kuschevatzky had just got back into playing music when he was approached by his high school buddies to form a band.

The four teenagers wedged into a bandmate’s garage and fleshed out some riffs into pure, unfiltered, guitar-heavy rock reminiscent of tracks found on ’90s cassettes like Weezer’s debut album or Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

About a year ago, a couple of those riffs garnered a couple of million eyes and ears on TikTok: The notes were the building blocks of a song called “Restless” that went viral, landing in 2.4 million TikTok posts that have garnered 3.2 billion lifetime views as of today.

The success of “Restless” helped their alt-rock band Untitled land a record deal, spots in festival circuits and a headline tour of their own in the UK.

“Before ‘Restless’ blew up on TikTok, I was going to go to school for film at Santa Monica College – that’s where we were all pretty much going,” said Kuschevatzky, 18. “But I had told my music teacher that I was going to keep on creating, and I was going to keep on composing no matter where I ended up in life.”

“And now, I have the possibility of pursuing this as a career,” he added.

The ranks of musical groups and artists grew sizably during the past year and a half, and the industry even logged an 11-month stretch of consecutive employment gains, BLS data shows. (And the growth might be even more significant: Many musicians are self-employed, gig workers or independent contractors, and the BLS monthly data excludes these categories).

Social media has played a critical role in knocking down barriers of entry for new artists like Untitled, said Kevin Zinger, a venerable music producer who cut his teeth in the early ’90s SoCal music scene promoting shows for bands such as Sublime, Blink-182 and Cypress Hill.

Courtesy Regime Music Group

Zinger’s Regime Music Group signed Untitled in February.

While it’s much easier now for artists to get exposure, the same can’t be said for the economics of it all, Zinger said. Musicians sometimes are dredging “a river of nickels” from streaming, so other avenues (including touring) are still needed, he said.

Fortunately, there’s been a resurgence in the live show business in recent years, he added.

In 2025, consumers spent 9.5% more on live entertainment (excluding sporting events) than they did the year before, according to inflation-adjusted Commerce Department data. Excluding the post-pandemic explosion in experience spending, it was the highest annual growth rate seen since 2007.

“It’s a gathering, it’s a connection, it’s where you go to meet other like-minded people,” Zinger said. “It’s always going to be around; it’s always going to thrive.”

The Seattle chapter of Yarn Dragon’s origin story began eight years ago at a four-foot-long table in Pike Place Market, enveloped by the din of the historic waterfront public marketplace.

Among that story’s most recent entries – logged in 2024 and 2025 – were the openings of not one but two brick-and-mortar locations filled with a kaleidoscopic collection of hand-dyed yarns.

Courtesy Jonathan Berner

Jonathan Berner, who owns Yarn Dragon, sees the expansion of his business as a reflection of an evolution in human behavior.

During the pandemic, many people picked up knitting from online resources.

“Then they realized that there is a tremendous community around the fiber arts,” Berner said.

Three thousand miles east in Concord, New Hampshire, Tyler Fish sees a similar trend at play.

Eight months ago, Fish co-founded Concord Clothworks after the closure of the local Joann Fabrics store where she worked. Business has gone well thus far, and Fish’s fabric and crafts store is poised for an expansion in the coming months with a new classroom and workspace.

“I feel like people are looking to make their own things, and we don’t have any ‘third spaces’ (gathering places outside home and work) anymore to hang out and meet like-minded people,” she said.

The demand is there, PNC card data shows. Sales at craft shops and fabric stores are up 7% and 13.9%, respectively, in July from the year before.

Yarn Dragon’s Berner sees the industry’s staying power as something that goes beyond the post-Covid crave for community.

At a time when billions of dollars are feeding AI and its large language models, these little human-power hobbies and businesses remain a big draw.

“There is a niche in today’s economy for in-person business, because that is something a computer cannot provide,” he said, “and that’s a real human need to connect with other people who care about what you care about; who love what you love; and who can show you that you are valuable as a human being to other people.”

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明尼苏达州一家废弃的汽车配件商店。洛杉矶一家双车位车库。还有两家色彩缤纷的店铺——一家在西雅图，另一家在新罕布什尔州康科德。

欢迎来到美国最新的就业增长热点地区，这主要得益于消费者可支配收入支出方式的显著转变。

它们是创意企业的大本营——一家以社区为中心的游戏商店、一支摇滚乐队、一家手工染色纱线企业和一家新兴的布料公司。

随着多年高通胀加剧，大宗商品（包括汽车和房屋）价格上涨，消费者纷纷转向“小确幸”，这些产品也因此迸发出旺盛的创意活力（和销售潜力）。此外，在人工智能渗透到生活方方面面的当下，年轻人也开始追捧“奶奶辈的爱好”，并积极参与线下活动，这进一步推动了这一趋势。

因此，在疲软的劳动力市场中，爱好商店、音乐艺术家和缝纫店变成了小型就业创造引擎。

美国劳工统计局的数据显示，在截至 6 月的 18 个月中，这三类职业的就业人数占其各自劳动力的比例增幅最大。

据美国劳工统计局 (BLS) 数据显示，在此期间，爱好、玩具和游戏零售商新增就业岗位 35,000 个，增长 29%；音乐团体和艺术家新增就业岗位 9,000 个，增长 25%；缝纫、针线活和布匹零售商新增就业岗位 7,000 个，增长 24%。

这些创意企业虽然只占总劳动力的一小部分（0.15%），但它们的影响力却远远超过了其规模：在过去 18 个月中，它们的总新增就业岗位占整个劳动力市场新增就业岗位的 9%。

在明尼苏达州布卢明顿的这家前汽车配件商店里，雨刮片、机油、电池和库存商品都已不见踪影。

取而代之的是琳琅满目的商品——棋盘游戏、微缩模型、收藏品、宝可梦卡牌——以及十几张供大家一起玩耍的桌子。

这家明亮宽敞的 5000 平方英尺的商店于 4 月开业，是 Tower Games 的第二家分店。Tower Games 自 2007 年以来一直在明尼阿波利斯经营一家规模较小的商店。Tower Games 的老板 Bob Seabold 自 2015 年以来一直拥有这家新店，他表示，这家新店的筹备工作已经进行了多年。

承蒙罗伯特·西博尔德惠允

“我们在2019年开始发展得非常好，然后新冠疫情就来了，”他说。“我当然不想重蹈覆辙，但结果证明这对（销售）来说真的很好。”

人们原本用于旅行的钱，转而用于家庭爱好和游戏等领域。

“我当时想，‘这会持续下去吗？还是只是一时的风潮？’”他说。

据PNC经济研究公司提供给CNN的数据显示，7月份爱好、玩具和游戏商店的消费额比去年同期增长了27%。消费者分析公司Circana的另一份报告显示，爱好类商品（包括快速增长的体育和集换式卡牌业务）推动了美国玩具行业销售的增长，该行业今年上半年的销售额创下六年来的新高。

“人们只是想要一些能给他们带来快乐的东西，想要休息一下；他们想做一些放松的事情，”Circana 客户洞察副总裁 Kristen McLean 说。

她表示，除了爱好、游戏和收藏品之外，消费者还转向了美容、自我护理、烹饪书籍、小家电和家居用品。

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

“人们不卖房子，所以他们就把钱投资到房子上，”她说道，指的是美国房地产市场深陷的寒冬。“出门太贵了，所以现在出现了一种奇怪的疫情余波，但原因却截然不同。”

随着Tower店销售额的增长，Seabold公司在两个地点共有29名员工。资深兽医技师Brittany Steffen是最新加入的兼职员工之一。

“年初的时候，我的一位朋友突然去世，我感觉人生苦短，”37岁的斯蒂芬说道，她在销售部门工作，每月还会组织一次绘画比赛。“我真的很想做一些让我快乐、让我感到幸福的事情，也想尝试一些不同的事情。”

在洛杉矶韦斯特切斯特社区的一个双车位车库里，胡安·库舍瓦茨基坐在一个廉价的阿什当音箱箱体上，利用振动更好地听他的贝斯声。

去年年初，库舍瓦茨基刚重新开始演奏音乐，他的高中好友就找到他，邀请他组建一支乐队。

这四个青少年挤进一个乐队成员的车库，将一些即兴演奏发展成纯粹、未经修饰、吉他为主的摇滚乐，让人想起 90 年代磁带中的曲目，例如 Weezer 的首张专辑或 Nirvana 的《Nevermind》。

大约一年前，其中几个即兴片段在 TikTok 上吸引了数百万的关注：这些音符构成了一首名为“Restless”的歌曲，这首歌迅速走红，在 TikTok 上发布了 240 万个相关帖子，截至目前累计观看次数已达 32 亿次。

《Restless》的成功帮助他们的另类摇滚乐队 Untitled 获得了一份唱片合约，参加了音乐节巡演，并在英国进行了自己的巡回演出。

“在《Restless》在TikTok上爆红之前，我本来打算去圣莫尼卡学院学习电影——我们几乎所有人都打算去那里，”18岁的库舍瓦茨基说。“但我告诉我的音乐老师，无论我的人生最终走向何方，我都会继续创作，继续作曲。”

“现在，我有可能将此作为我的职业，”他补充道。

过去一年半里，音乐团体和艺术家的数量显著增长，美国劳工统计局（BLS）的数据显示，该行业甚至连续11个月实现了就业增长。（而且实际增长可能更为显著：许多音乐家是自雇人士、零工人员或独立承包商，而美国劳工统计局的月度数据不包括这些类别。）

资深音乐制作人凯文·辛格表示，社交媒体在打破像 Untitled 这样的新艺术家的准入门槛方面发挥了至关重要的作用。辛格在 90 年代初的南加州音乐界崭露头角，曾为 Sublime、Blink-182 和 Cypress Hill 等乐队推广演出。

承蒙 Regime Music Group 惠允

Zinger 的 Regime Music Group 于 2 月签下了 Untitled。

Zinger表示，虽然现在艺术家更容易获得曝光，但经济效益却并非如此。他说，音乐人有时只能从流媒体平台“捞到微薄的收入”，因此仍然需要其他途径（包括巡演）。

他补充说，幸运的是，近年来现场演出行业出现了复苏。

根据经通胀调整后的美国商务部数据，2025年消费者在现场娱乐（不包括体育赛事）上的支出比上一年增长了9.5%。若不计入疫情后体验式消费的激增，这将是自2007年以来最高的年度增长率。

“这是一个聚会，一个交流平台，一个结识志同道合者的地方，”辛格说。“它会一直存在，一直繁荣发展。”

Yarn Dragon 的西雅图起源故事始于八年前，当时他们在派克市场一张四英尺长的桌子上，周围是历史悠久的海滨公共市场的喧嚣声。

在该故事的最新条目中（记录于 2024 年和 2025 年），不仅开设了一家，而是两家实体店，里面摆满了琳琅满目的手工染色纱线。

图片由乔纳森·伯纳提供

Yarn Dragon 的老板 Jonathan Berner 认为，他的业务扩张反映了人类行为的演变。

疫情期间，许多人通过网络资源开始学习编织。

“然后他们意识到，纤维艺术领域存在着一个庞大的社群，”伯纳说。

在新罕布什尔州康科德市，距离这里三千英里，泰勒·菲什也看到了类似的趋势。

八个月前，菲什在她工作的当地Joann Fabrics商店倒闭后，与人共同创办了Concord Clothworks。迄今为止，生意进展顺利，菲什的布料和工艺品商店计划在未来几个月内扩建，增设新的教室和工作区。

“我觉得人们都想创造属于自己的事物，我们不再有任何‘第三空间’（家庭和工作场所之外的聚集场所）可以闲逛和结识志同道合的人了，”她说。

PNC银行信用卡数据显示，市场需求旺盛。7月份，工艺品商店和布料商店的销售额分别比去年同期增长了7%和13.9%。

Yarn Dragon 的 Berner 认为，该行业的持久生命力超越了后疫情时代人们对社群的渴望。

在数十亿美元涌入人工智能及其大型语言模型的当下，这些小型的人力爱好和生意仍然具有巨大的吸引力。

“在当今经济中，面对面的商业活动仍然有其存在的价值，因为这是计算机无法提供的，”他说，“而且，这是人类真正的需求，即与那些关心你所关心的事情、热爱你所热爱的事物、并且能够向你展示你作为一个人对其他人来说也很有价值的人建立联系。”