McKinsey report says AI may push 11 million US workers into new jobs

By Splitfeed EditorialLast updated Sep 29, 2026, 20:30 UTC

On September 29, 2026, McKinsey published a report projecting that artificial intelligence could require approximately 11 million US workers to switch occupations by 2035. The figure does not represent total job eliminations but rather workers who would need to move into different roles entirely, a distinction the report draws explicitly. The projection covers the United States over a roughly nine-year horizon and represents one of the more concrete near-term estimates of AI's labor market effects to come from a major consulting firm.

The stakes in this report lie partly in what the number measures and partly in what it leaves open. Occupational transitions are not the same as unemployment, but they are also not costless. Workers who must retrain face lost income during the transition, possible wage cuts in new roles, and unequal access to retraining programs depending on geography and education. The 11 million figure also sits within a larger debate about whether AI-driven displacement will be offset by job creation in new sectors, as previous waves of automation have been, or whether the pace and breadth of this shift is meaningfully different from earlier technological disruptions.

The Anti-AI camp has engaged directly with the report. The account realworldrj.bsky.social, in a post titled "it is happening here," framed the projection in terms of retraining burdens and income loss, describing the affected workers as facing substantial economic hardship rather than manageable career shifts. The Pro-AI camp has not yet published reactions to this specific report, but a story like this would typically prompt arguments that occupational switching signals adaptation rather than harm, and that AI will generate enough new roles to absorb displaced workers over the same period. The Middle Ground camp has also not weighed in yet, though its expected position would center on the need for policy intervention, specifically retraining investment and transition support, to determine whether the outcome is disruptive or manageable.

The argument is likely to sharpen as McKinsey releases further detail on which occupations face the highest transition pressure and what the wage trajectories look like for workers who do switch. Government responses, particularly any legislative movement on workforce retraining funding before 2027, would also clarify whether the structural support exists to absorb a shift of this scale.