Oct 4, 2026 · 5 min · 7 segments
Fortune reported on October 3, 2026 on a new McKinsey Global Institute report projecting that AI and automation will cut demand for about 36 million US jobs by 2035 while growth elsewhere creates…
That sounds like the good news we've been waiting for.
More jobs come in than go out.
So why would anyone worry?
Because the jobs going out and the jobs coming in belong to different people.
McKinsey says about 11 million workers would have to leave their line of work entirely and start over in another one.
Which
workers are we talking about? Is
my job on that list? The report names customer service reps, retail salespeople, office assistants, cashiers, and warehouse workers as the biggest groups who would have to move.
And where are
they
supposed to go?
The growth is in healthcare, construction, and management.
So on paper, a cashier is looking at caregiving, healthcare support, or construction support.
People change careers all the time, though.
How hard can this move be? 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.
That's a pretty thin slice.
What does everybody else get? 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.
That sounds like the good news we've been waiting for.
More jobs come in than go out.
So why would anyone worry?
Because the jobs going out and the jobs coming in belong to different people.
McKinsey says about 11 million workers would have to leave their line of work entirely and start over in another one.
Which
workers are we talking about? Is
my job on that list? The report names customer service reps, retail salespeople, office assistants, cashiers, and warehouse workers as the biggest groups who would have to move.
And where are
they
supposed to go?
The growth is in healthcare, construction, and management.
So on paper, a cashier is looking at caregiving, healthcare support, or construction support.
People change careers all the time, though.
How hard can this move be? 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.
That's a pretty thin slice.
What does everybody else get? 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.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
