If AI Causes an Office Job Wipeout, It'll Cause Huge Problems for Blue Collar Work Too

"Let's say in our scenario, we talk about five percent of folks might get fired in a couple of years. Those five percent, if there aren't white collar jobs for them to relocate into, then they're going to have to move into the gig economy and the blue collar labor force. And so that puts pressure on the entire labor market, not just the white collar one."

"The Citrini report, published Sunday, imagines a hypothetical 2028 in which productivity advances enabled by powerful AI models outmode vast portions of the job market. That's all fine with Wall Street, since the part that really had investors spooked was the paper's prediction that this would also dry up consumer spending, cause a global stock sell-off, and collapse even dependable money-makers like the S&P 500."

A Citrini Research report projects that AI productivity advances could eliminate five percent of jobs by 2028, triggering widespread economic consequences. While blue collar workers might initially view white collar job losses with satisfaction, mass unemployment would ultimately harm all workers. Displaced white collar employees unable to find comparable positions would flood gig economy and blue collar labor markets, creating downward pressure on wages and working conditions across all sectors. The report's predictions alarmed investors because job destruction would reduce consumer spending, trigger stock market sell-offs, and undermine reliable investments like the S&P 500. Industry leaders including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei have similarly warned that AI threatens to eliminate entire job categories and entry-level positions.

Read at Futurism