According to PWC's 2025 Global AI Job Barometer Report, artificial intelligence makes people more valuable.
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Though they are not often employed in so-called “white-collar” jobs, economists say the contractions aren't for artificial intelligence. At least, it's not yet.
Professional and Business Services, an industry representing white-collar roles and middle and upper-class educated workers, has not experienced much employment activity in the past two years.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, professional and business services employment growth fell to -0.4% in May, a slight decline from -0.2% in April. In other words, the sector is losing employment opportunities, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at employment search site.
Meanwhile, industries such as healthcare, construction and manufacturing have seen more job creation. In May, the department found that nearly half of employment growth was from healthcare, adding 62,000 jobs.
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But economists say the decline in white-collar job openings is driven more by structural economic issues rather than artificial intelligence technology doing people's jobs.
“We know that it's not AI,” says Alí Bustamante, economist and director of the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank.
Indeed, Stahl agreed: “This is, at least so far, a more economical story, not an AI confusion tale.”
Artificial intelligence is still in its early stages
According to economists, there are several reasons why AI is not behind the decline in job creation in the white-collar sector.
For one thing, a decline in job creation has been happening over the years, Bustamante said. In that time, AI technology was “pretty bad,” he said.
Moreover, the technology is still in its early stages, so software cannot perform important skills without human intervention, Stahle said.
In fact, a 2024 report by researchers found that out of the over 2,800 unique work skills identified, it is “very likely” to replace generative artificial intelligence. Genai creates content such as text and images based on existing data.
Over five scenarios: “Very unlikely”, “Impossible”, “Possibility”, “Very likely”, “Very likely”, and “Very likely”, the site is “Very unlikely” or “Impossible”, where around 68.7% of the skills are replaced by Genai technology.
“We may get to the point they do that, but for now it doesn't seem like it's a big factor,” Stahle said.
“Work will change.”
AI has not yet replaced human workers, but there may be a time when technology will disrupt the workforce.
“It's true, work will change,” Stahl said. “We don't intend to underestimate the potential impact of AI.”
Stahle said there is an increase in openings for consulting jobs focused on implementing generated AI. Over the past year, the role of management consulting in AI languages accounted for 12.4% of genai posts, indicating a sign of growing demand.
Another report by the World Economic Forum in January predicts that by 2030, new technology will generate 170 million new jobs, or 14% of current total jobs.
However, that growth could be offset by a decline in existing roles. The report says that around 92 million jobs, or 8% of current total jobs, could be expelled by AI technology.
For knowledge-based workers whose skills with AI may overlap, consider investing in developing skills on how to get ahead with AI technology, Stahle said.
