McKinsey: AI May Push 11M US Workers Into New Careers by 2035

Roughly 11 million US workers, about 7% of the labor force, may need to switch occupations by 2035 as AI reshapes work, according to a new McKinsey Global Institute report covered by Bloomberg. The base estimate carries a wide band: anywhere from 6 million to 16 million workers, depending on the pace of adoption.

"The next decade's challenge is mobility, not scarcity," the report states. McKinsey projects that automation could displace the equivalent of 36 million positions while economic growth and AI-driven expansion generate demand for roughly 40 million new ones, leaving the country with more total job openings in 2035 than today. About 25 million workers whose roles are touched by automation are expected to stay put because expansion within their industries absorbs much of the pressure.

The reallocation math is where the strain shows. Historically, roughly 215,000 US workers change occupational groups each year; the McKinsey scenario implies about 770,000 annually, roughly 3.6 times that pace. More than 75% of the workers likely to move sit in three fields: office and administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics, covering customer-service representatives, cashiers, and warehouse workers most exposed to automation. It's the latest in a run of jobs stories we've been tracking, alongside Apple halting a plan to cut 5,000 AppleCare jobs for AI agents earlier this week.

The distribution skews sharply by income. Lower-wage workers and those without college degrees face a significantly greater risk of needing to change occupations, and low-income workers in the exposed sectors are nearly eight times more likely than high earners to switch jobs due to AI-related changes. As the report puts it, "the United States is likely to have more jobs available in 2035 than today, but with fewer workers because the population is aging."