The doomsayers on social media warn that AI will leave millions of Americans unemployed. The McKinsey Global Institute ran the numbers, and they say something different.
According to its new report, automation could reduce labor demand for occupations like call center jobs by 36 million jobs by 2035. But growth in AI-related fields and the broader economy would generate demand for 41 million jobs. That’s a net gain of five million.
About 76% of the new jobs can’t be done remotely, including work in hospitals, on construction sites, and in data centers.
As this chart from the same report shows, we’ve seen technological advances over the past century, but the number of workers continues to grow. The difference is that menial and dangerous jobs like coal mining have been replaced by much higher pay occupations.


