This unprecedented shift in unemployment suggests AI could strand white-collar knowledge workers in a jobless recovery after the next recession

Economy·unemploymentThis unprecedented shift in unemployment suggests AI could strand white-collar knowledge workers in a jobless recovery after the next recessionBy Jason MaBy Jason MaWeekend EditorJason MaWeekend EditorJason Ma is the weekend editor at Fortune, where he covers , the economy, finance, and housing.SEE FULL BIO For the first time ever, workers from non-routine cognitive occupations account for a greater of the unemployed than workers from non-routine manual jobs.Getty ImagesSigns that artificial intelligence is weighing on the job market are continuing to creep into the data, offering clues on how AI could play a role the next time the economy slips into a downturn. es have historically leaned on automation during recessions, and AI could hit white-collar knowledge workers especially hard, JPMorgan warned. es trying to do more with less have historically leaned on automation during recessions, but the advent of generative AI could scramble the typical pattern of winners and losers when the next downturn strikes

While white-collar knowledge workers have previously not suffered from severe recession-induced layoffs or jobless recoveries, the next time could be different, JPMorgan senior U.S. economist Murat Tasci said in a note Tuesday. “More specifically, we think that during the course of the next recession the speed and the breadth of the adoption of the AI tools and applications in the workplace might induce large-scale displacement for occupations that consist of primarily non-routine cognitive tasks; henceforth non-routine cognitive occupations,” he wrote

Since the late 1980s, jobs that focus on routine tasks have been disappearing because of automation, Tasci said

That includes “routine cognitive occupations” sales and office jobs, as well as “routine manual occupations” such as jobs in construction, maintenance, duction and transportation

Over the past four decades, it’s taken longer and longer for routine jobs to bounce back after recessions

In fact, employment in routine occupations has still not returned to its peak before the Great Financial Crisis

By contrast, “non-routine cognitive occupations”—white-collar knowledge workers scientists, engineers, designers, and lawyers—were much less cyclical and barely dipped below pre-recession peaks

They have also led prior employment recoveries most of the time, Tasci observed. ‘Ominous’ sign in unemployment pattern But an unprecedented shift in unemployment trends could indicate that white-collar knowledge workers will suffer a much different fate in the age of AI

For the first time ever, workers from non-routine cognitive occupations now account for a greater of the unemployed than workers from non-routine manual jobs (i.e. healthcare support, personal care, and food preparation). “Workers who were last employed in non-routine cognitive jobs have always accounted for the smallest of the unemployed in the data, until recently,” Tasci said, calling it an “ominous” sign. “This changing pattern might be indicative of rising unemployment risk for these workers going forward.” That’s as evidence has been mounting that AI is already limiting the number of entry-level jobs that have typically been filled by recent college graduates

Meanwhile, AI doesn’t pose much more additional risk to routine jobs or to non-routine manual jobs that will still require more physical personal interaction, he explained

In an X post on Saturday, he said there’s a “ division of labor between humans and AI,” meaning that people still need to AI models necessary context, give them extensive mpts, and verify their output. “This means that apocalyptic predictions of job loss are as overhyped as AGI itself,” Sacks added. “Instead, the truism that ‘you’re not going to lose your job to AI but to someone who uses AI better than you’ is holding up well.” Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world

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