'Forget Coders. The Real AI Threat Is In the Back Office'
6 74Which jobs are most threatened by AI? "Programmers, software engineers and other tech industry employees," goes one common answer.
"But many economists are more concerned about a different, larger group of white-collar workers," reports the New York Times: customer service reps, bookkeepers, payroll clerks and HR specialists, "who fly under the radar but collectively account for tens of millions of jobs..." They are spread across the country and throughout the economy, working in every industry, in big cities and small towns, at major corporations and mom-and-pop businesses... These jobs typically offer a middle-class salary or a pathway to achieving one — much as manufacturing jobs did for men before decades of globalisation and automation wiped many of them away... For now, such an outcome is a fear, not a forecast. Despite high-profile layoffs in tech and finance, there is little firm evidence that AI has hurt the labour market as a whole.
Economists have become increasingly convinced that disruptions are likely, but they say it is too early to know where or how widespread they will be. They remain broadly sceptical of claims that the technology will lead to mass unemployment in the near future. Some AI industry leaders have walked back such predictions in recent weeks. But given the extraordinary pace at which companies are adopting AI — and at which the technology is improving — economists say policymakers need to consider the potential effects on the labour market. And they say they are concerned that the public debate has focused too much on software engineers and a relative handful of other high-status careers — lawyers, consultants, economists — rather than the workers who could be most vulnerable...
Economists at Northwestern University recently recalculated measures of AI exposure based on the makeup of the total workforce, not just the people using the technology. Administrative and front-line roles, such as customer service representatives, rose to the top of the list. "The most affected jobs are secretaries, are routine clerks," said Michelle Yin, one of the working paper's authors. "They're not computer scientists or data scientists at all."
The article also includes this counterpoint from an economist at the University of Illinois who has studied earlier waves of white-collar automation: that like other disruptive technologies, AI likely will also create new jobs. So the possibility exists AI will make workers more productive and allow them to earn more. "I would be cautious about just focusing on what are we losing as opposed to what are we going to gain on the other side."
6 comments
Lol (Score: 5, Insightful)
by liqu1d ( 4349325 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @06:35PM (#66235088)
"AI will make workers more productive and allow them to earn more" yeah sure that'll happen. Best I can give you is more work for the same pay and it's your fault when the AI fucks up.
Some statistics on who works those jobs (Score: 5, Informative)
by will4 ( 7250692 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @06:52PM (#66235108)
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat... [bls.gov]
Human resources managers - 314,000 workers - 79% women - 80% are white
Human resources workers - 897,000 workers - 78% women - 78% are white
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping 124,000 workers - 79% women - 73% are white
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks - 1,254,000 workers - 82% women - 81% are white
Payroll and timekeeping clerks 166,000 workers -82% women - 81% are white
Customer service representatives 2,600, workers - 64% women - 71% are white
Who are they? Secretaries (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @07:39PM (#66235158)
Here's the article's actual answer to the question (not in the summary): "The most affected jobs are secretaries, are routine clerks," said Michelle Yin, one of the working paper's authors...
Secretarial jobs were already cataclysmically wiped out by the word processing/computer revolution. It's hard to remember anymore how ubiquitous secretaries were to businesses.
However, turns out that this previous revolution didn't reduce the workforce, because the number of IT support personnel required increased directly as the number of secretaries decreased.
AI will remove all the clerks (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @07:37PM (#66235152)
If your job is filling out forms or collating information to produce reports, if it's taking notes, if it's taking inventory, if it's managing schedules, if it's producing documentation...
All those jobs are going to fall to IT. Not entirely, but it'll be human oversight and an AI replacing a team of white collar workers.
At the same time, it'll be embodied in robots and unskilled manual labor jobs will evaporate (this is already happening).
Good luck adjusting when the disruption is broad, deep, and rapid throughout the economy and workers can't retrain as quickly as jobs are eliminated. This isn't the automobile, this is "cheap obedient slaves with almost no support cost for those who can afford the upfront price tag".
Accounting oddly is resilient (Score: 5, Interesting)
by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:23PM (#66235208)
My old company tried workday to simplify time tracking and accounting. It was a miserable failure despite a huge committment and time investment. The bulk of accounting is significantly more shades of gray than black and white which makes it terrible for AI/automation. You can make it easier to automate by designing your systems and processes around automation, but that can force you to lose some of the benefits of the original system.
My guess is that HR will be much more gutted, as the whole point of HR today is to make everything a repeatable process and eliminate subjective bias. Customer service automation is miserable so far, but the decision tree/script does lend itself to automation, at least for first tier support (if you don't care about actually providing service to your customers).
Re:Accounting oddly is resilient (Score: 5, Insightful)
by hjf ( 703092 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @11:31PM (#66235388)
No it's not? HR's only role is to protect the company from their employees.
HR is not your friend. Raise any concerns with HR and you will be flagged as problematic. They are not there to resolve conflicts. They're there to AVOID conflicts. And the best way to avoid conflict is not having "conflictive" people in the first place.
HR does not work in your interest. HR works in the interest of the company.
HR is there to document your mistakes so the company can fire you cleanly. That's HR's main function.