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McKinsey Says AI Will Create More American Jobs Than It Kills. Only One in Seven of the Workers It Displaces Has a Straight Road Into One · Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts

• 0:00
  [Host] This is Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts, the show where the new jobs are real and the road to them isn't paved. Fortune reported on Saturday, October third, that a new study from the consulting firm McKinsey expects AI to create more American jobs than it destroys over the next decade.
• 0:18
  [Guest] The count goes like this. Automation removes the need for about thirty-six million jobs, and growth in the rest of the economy creates about forty-one million. McKinsey's own line is that the challenge of the next decade is mobility, not scarcity.
• 0:32
  [Host] That sounds like the good news we've been waiting for. More jobs come in than go out, so why would anyone worry?
• 0:40
  [Guest] Because the jobs going out and the jobs coming in belong to different people. McKinsey says about eleven million workers would have to leave their line of work entirely and start over in another one.
• 0:53
  [Host] Which workers are we talking about? Is my job on that list?
• 0:58
  [Guest] The report names customer service reps, retail salespeople, office assistants, cashiers and warehouse workers as the biggest groups who would have to move.
• 1:06
  [Host] And where are they supposed to go?
• 1:08
  [Guest] The growth is in healthcare, construction and management. So on paper, a cashier is looking at caregiving, healthcare support or construction support.
• 1:16
  [Host] People change careers all the time, though. How hard can this move be?
• 1:21
  [Guest] McKinsey graded every route from a shrinking job to a growing one, and it describes them like roads. A direct road means you can switch with less than six months of training and no pay cut. Only about one in seven of those workers has a road like that.
• 1:39
  [Host] That's a pretty thin slice. What does everybody else get?
• 1:42
  [Guest] Some get what the report calls a winding road, which means serious retraining before anyone will hire them. Nearly half get what it calls an unpaved road, with big skill gaps, a long wait for a credential, or lower pay at the end.
• 1:58
  [Host] Give me an example of an unpaved one.
• 2:01
  [Guest] McKinsey's own example is a dishwasher becoming a home health aide. The job exists and it's growing, but most of what the dishwasher knows doesn't carry over.
• 2:11
  [Host] Okay, but the same report says Americans switched careers at about this pace during the pandemic, and it didn't leave lasting damage. Why can't we just do that again?
• 2:21
  [Guest] That was a short burst, and McKinsey is asking for that pace every year for a decade. It also says the growing jobs come with a gate. About eighty-five percent of them require a credential, meaning a license, a certificate or a degree.
• 2:37
  [Host] So a laid-off cashier can't just walk into a hospital and say they're ready to work.
• 2:43
  [Guest] They need the certificate first, and the certificate can take months or years of classes. McKinsey admits, in its own words, that training alone cannot compensate workers during training.
• 2:53
  [Host] Hold on, who pays that cashier's rent while they sit in class?
• 2:57
  [Guest] The report never hands that bill to anyone, and that's the hole in the middle of it. It notes that some other countries pay workers while they retrain, but for Americans it counts the jobs and maps the roads without assigning anyone to carry people along them. A retraining course with no income attached is an offer most people can't afford to accept.
• 3:20
  [Host] Fortune asked Richard Florida, who studies cities and work, and he sounds relaxed. He expects service workers to land in wellness jobs, like fitness and Pilates studios.
• 3:30
  [Guest] He may be right about where the jobs show up, and he points out that most Americans once worked on farms. But nobody on McKinsey's list gets generations to make the move, because the clock in this report runs about a decade.
• 3:45
  [Host] Who ends up with the hardest road?
• 3:48
  [Guest] The people with the least cushion. McKinsey found lower-paid workers are more than seven times as likely as higher-paid workers to need a whole new occupation. They are also the least likely to have a direct road out.
• 4:02
  [Host] So the people who can least afford months without a paycheck are the ones being told to go without one?
• 4:09
  [Guest] That's what the numbers say, while higher earners mostly stay put as their jobs change around them. McKinsey is upfront that this is a model's output and not a measurement, so the exact figures will move.
• 4:22
  [Host] Then what do I do with this if I'm in one of those shrinking jobs?
• 4:27
  [Guest] Look up what the job next door requires before you need it. Find out which certificate it takes, how long it runs, what it costs, and whether your employer or your state will pay you while you earn it.
• 4:42
  [Host] I came in thinking more jobs than we lose meant we were fine.
• 4:46
  [Guest] The total does come out ahead. But a job total is no use to the person who can't reach the job, and a lot of these workers are being handed a map of a road nobody has paved.
• 5:00
  [Host] So when the next jobs forecast comes out, I should skip the total and ask who paves the road, and who pays the traveler.
• 5:09
  [Guest] For more on what carries workers across the gap between a shrinking job and a growing one, head to unscarcity dot ai. The book is on Amazon, the audiobook is on Spotify. This has been Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts.