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Technological innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) may lead to more than 12 million occupational transitions across the U.S. job market, experts said in June.
Experts at a McKinsey Media Day panel in New York in early June claimed that the only way to keep up with innovation in a period of “sluggish productivity growth” is to invest in technology and AI, according to Fortune. “I have my number of workers and my output per worker,” explained McKinsey Global Institute director Kweilin Ellingrud. “Either change the number of workers, which is hard due to aging, or I invest in technology and AI, and change the equation of my output per worker.”
Another key factor in the future of work is organizational health, which senior McKinsey partner Brooke Weddle described as a company’s ability to “align around a strategy, translate that into the work environment, execute against it, and renew itself over time through innovation and increased customer focus.”
“In realizing productivity gains, running the place more effectively from the top will matter,” Weddle noted, suggesting AI is key to organizational health and performance as we move into this new business landscape.
What Industries Will Change?
Between now and 2030, some “12 million” occupational transitions will occur, Ellingrud estimated. The biggest part of this will be “dramatically shrinking jobs,” she suggested. However, there will apparently be more jobs in healthcare, construction, and education.
“Administrative assistance, customer service or sales, food service, and production and manufacturing,” are the key industries under threat, Ellingrud continued.
“Those four jobs will, kind of, be going away, and driving transitions,” she added. “We talk about generative AI because it changes the nature of the work we do—it will affect about 30% of our activities, but it won’t eliminate our jobs. But for those four categories, it will.” (TAKE A POLL: Is Universal Access to High-Speed Internet Essential For Economic Growth and Equality?)
White Collar Shifts
Other experts believe many white collar jobs will disappear. Others believe there will be “no job that does not incorporate some form of AI in a very meaningful way, not even in the next five years, in the next year or two—I mean that.” This includes every area, from janitors to security guards to designers.
Ellingrud believes AI will be as impactful to humanity as the wheel or electricity. It’s something everyone will need to get to know in order to be part of society moving forward. But is that what you want? (TAKE A POLL: Will Traditional Colleges Become Obsolete Due to Online Learning?)
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