The estimate comes from a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute, which says the US economy could generate more jobs over the next decade than are displaced by automation. But the transition could require one of the most significant and sustained workforce transformations in the country’s history.

McKinsey estimates that automation could reduce labour demand by the equivalent of about 36 million jobs by 2035, based on its assessment of how technology could change the amount of work required across occupations.

However, the report does not forecast an overall collapse in US employment. Economic growth, AI-related activity, and other structural changes could generate demand for about 41 million jobs over the same period.

The crucial issue, according to the research, is that many workers whose existing roles are affected will not automatically be able to move into the new jobs being created.

Of the 36 million jobs whose demand could be reduced by automation, around 25 million workers could remain in their existing occupations, because growth in those occupations would offset some of the reduction caused by technology. The remaining 11 million could need to change occupations altogether.

McKinsey describes the central challenge as one of mobility rather than job scarcity.

The scale of occupational movement would nevertheless be considerably greater than historical levels. The report estimates that around 770,000 workers a year could need to switch occupational groups, compared with a long-term historical average of about 215,000.

That would make the pace of occupational change roughly 3.6 times the historical average.

The impact is unlikely to be distributed evenly. McKinsey identifies customer service representatives, retail sales associates, office assistants, cashiers, and warehouse workers as the occupations accounting for a significant share of the workers expected to move between jobs. Together, those five occupations account for about one-third of the workers projected to make such transitions.

At the other end of the labour market, healthcare, construction, management, and professional and technical services are expected to see stronger demand.

McKinsey estimates that more than a third of positions expected to open in growing occupations will be concentrated in four broad groups: healthcare support, healthcare professionals, construction, and management.

The report also points to a second dimension of the AI-driven transition: the creation of jobs that do not yet exist or are currently too small to measure.

Drawing on previous waves of general-purpose technologies, McKinsey estimates that AI could create between 500,000 and two million jobs in new occupations over the next decade. These could include roles linked to AI infrastructure, agent engineering, workflow design, AI governance, human oversight, and evaluation.

The research also suggests that many existing jobs will not disappear but will instead be substantially redesigned.

McKinsey estimates that about 70% of US workers could experience some form of job or role reinvention as AI adoption accelerates. That could involve employees using AI tools to perform existing tasks more quickly, taking on new responsibilities or working alongside automated systems.

The distinction is important because the headline numbers on jobs created and displaced do not capture the difficulty of moving individual workers from shrinking occupations into expanding ones.

A growing healthcare or construction job, for example, does not necessarily provide an immediate alternative for a worker leaving retail or clerical employment. Differences in qualifications, skills, location, wages, and licensing can all prevent workers from making a direct transition.

McKinsey therefore focuses on what it calls career pathways—routes through which workers can move from declining occupations into growing ones while minimising retraining requirements, wage losses, and additional qualifications.

The wider US labour market is already undergoing structural changes independent of AI. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects total US employment to rise from 170.3 million in 2025 to 176.2 million in 2035, an increase of 5.9 million jobs, although that growth is slower than the previous decade.

An aging population is another factor. McKinsey says the US could have more jobs available in 2035 than today but fewer workers to fill them, making the question of how people move between occupations increasingly important.

The report’s projections remain sensitive to the speed at which companies adopt automation and the extent to which automation reduces labour demand. Under different assumptions, the number of workers needing to change occupations could range from roughly six million to more than 16 million.

That uncertainty underscores the difficulty of predicting AI’s ultimate effect on employment. The technology could eliminate some tasks, augment others, and generate entirely new categories of work.

For US workers, the challenge over the next decade may therefore be less about whether jobs exist than about whether the education, skills, and career pathways needed to move into those jobs are available when existing roles begin to change.

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