Americans believe the future of work is in their hands.
A poll commissioned by the Business for Good Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing the gap between rich and poor, found that 75% of Americans agree that “practical skills and work experience are more important than formal degrees when it comes to career success.”
“There are a lot of people who historically didn’t think the American Dream belonged to them,” Ed Mitzen, co-founder of the Business for Good Foundation, told Business Insider ahead of the poll’s release. “I would argue that it’s not broken, it’s just moving, and moving to places we no longer see.”
The survey, conducted by Harris Poll, comes as AI leaders point to a potential boom in blue-collar jobs as agentic AI redefines and, in some cases, replaces white-collar jobs.
The survey also found that 76% of respondents agreed that jobs that rely on hands-on experience are less likely to be replaced by AI.
Overall, three in four Americans said they agree that what they consider a “good” job today is different than it was five years ago. Additionally, 78% agreed that “stigma against trades and blue-collar jobs is decreasing” as society places more emphasis on practical skills.
Researchers found that jobs that require human interaction or physical presence are less likely to be replaced by AI.
Indeed’s GenAI Skill Transformation Index recently explored how AI can generate jobs that require problem-solving skills and physical labor. They found that nursing care, childcare, and construction are the least likely to be affected by AI.
AI leaders talk about blue-collar work
AI leaders continue to debate the extent to which innovative technologies will change the current workforce. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stands by his prediction that AI could eliminate roughly half of entry-level white-collar jobs in the next one to five years. Others, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, question the extent of Amodei’s pessimistic predictions.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said at the World Economic Forum that now is the perfect time to enter the deal. Part of the reason is that the AI industry itself needs an influx of workers to help build the large data centers it wants to build.
“So you’re talking about people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories making six-figure salaries, and there’s a big gap,” Huang said in a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
xAI CEO Elon Musk has previously said that jobs that involve physical labor are likely to survive the “supersonic tsunami” of AI much longer.
“Anything that physically moves atoms, like cooking food or farming, those jobs are going to be around for a lot longer,” Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan in November. “But anything that’s digital, something that’s just someone sitting at a computer doing something, AI will take over that job at lightning speed.”
The Business For Good Foundation commissioned The Hariss Poll to survey 2,085 adults ages 18 and older. Harris Poll conducted the survey online in the United States from January 13th to January 15th. The overall margin or error is ±2.5 percentage points.
