WSJ: Consulting, Legal, Accounting All Grew in October

US professional and business services added 70,000 jobs in October, the sector's largest monthly gain since July 2022, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis by Ian Hodgson. Consulting, legal and accounting, three of the industries most routinely named as AI-exposed, all grew.

Management, scientific and technical consulting services added 17,300 jobs over the previous month. Legal services added 2,400. Accounting and related services added 2,300. 'All are industries frequently ranked as among the most exposed to AI,' the paper writes.

'I don't know how you could look at this report and conclude that we're entering anything like a white-collar job apocalypse,' Harvard economist David Deming told the Journal.

The picture inside those sectors is messier. Document-preparation services cut employment 17% over the year through September. Telephone call centers and public-relations agencies each lost 4.7% of jobs. Advertising agencies shed 3.9%. The piece notes that AI pressure is concentrating on entry-level, repetitive work: 'call-center workers, data-entry keyers, junior copywriters'.

Jobs is a well-covered beat on our tracker, with 119 stories in the last 90 days, most leaning the other direction, including last week's note that UK firms are cutting hiring rather than firing. One strong month for consulting is a counter-data point the displacement narrative now has to absorb.