A new McKinsey Global Institute report identifies healthcare, construction and management as the occupations most likely to absorb workers displaced by AI over the next decade, giving the clearest picture yet of where career pivots may pay off.
The report estimates that automation could reduce labour demand by 36 million US jobs by 2035, while growth in AI-related fields and the broader economy could generate demand for 40 million jobs in the same period. About 25 million of the displaced workers are expected to remain in their current occupations because industry growth offsets automation's impact. The remaining 11 million – roughly 6.5% of the current US labour force – may need to switch occupations entirely. McKinsey puts the full range at anywhere between 6 million and 16 million, depending on how quickly AI adoption spreads.
The emerging jobs are, on average, better paid. Roughly 60% of the employment growth projected by McKinsey is expected to fall within the top two wage quintiles, with healthcare, construction and management leading the demand. On the other side, office and administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics are identified as the sectors facing the steepest decline.
The disruption is not evenly distributed. Lower-income workers could be nearly eight times more likely than higher earners to be forced into a new occupation – a gap that underscores how AI's labour-market consequences are likely to deepen existing inequalities rather than level them.
McKinsey frames the decade ahead as a challenge of mobility rather than job scarcity. That framing matters: anxiety is already rising. Glassdoor's Employee Confidence Index hit a fresh record low in September, its third such low this year, driven by worker concern over job security, economic uncertainty and AI.
For India, the stakes are different but no less urgent. The country needs to generate roughly 10 million jobs a year to absorb new workers entering the labour force. AI complicates that target directly. NITI Aayog's October 2025 report warned that in a business-as-usual scenario, headcount in India's tech services sector could fall from 7.5–8 million in 2023 to 6 million by 2031, with the customer service sector also contracting.
India's IT industry – which employs over 5 million people and contributes around 7.5% of GDP – is already feeling it. Entry-level and routine roles are being cut, and according to Nomura's chief India economist Sonal Varma, "mid-level jobs are transforming." The pressure is most acute for workers in BPO, back-office processing and basic software roles: exactly the jobs that have historically offered a path to the middle class for young Indians without elite credentials. Whether that path stays open will depend less on AI itself and more on how fast retraining can follow displacement.
Sources: McKinsey Global Institute; Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, September 2025; NITI Aayog, "Roadmap for Job Creation in the AI Economy," October 2025; CNBC, "Why India's IT Sector is Shedding Jobs," August 2025; Nomura (Sonal Varma); NASSCOM.
