This unprecedented change in unemployment suggests that AI could break knowledge workers in white collar in an unemployed resumption after the next recession

While the workers of white know-how have not previously suffered from severe layoffs induced by the recession or unemployed recovery, the next time could be different, said the main US economist of JPMorgan, Murat Tasci said on Tuesday.

“More specifically, we believe that during the next recession, the speed and extent of the adoption of AI tools and applications in the workplace could induce a large -scale movement for professions that consist mainly of non -routine cognitive tasks; have now written non -routine cognitive tasks ”.

Since the late 1980s, jobs that have focused on routine tasks have disappeared due to automation, Tasci said. This includes “routine cognitive professions” such as sales and office jobs, as well as “manual routine professions” such as jobs in construction, maintenance, production and transport.

Over the past four decades, he has taken more and more time for routine work to rebound after the recessions. In fact, employment in routine professions has still not returned to its peak before the great financial crisis.

On the other hand, the “non -routine cognitive professions” – the workers of white know -how such as scientists, engineers, designers and lawyers – were much less cyclical and barely immersed under peaks before the recession. They also carried out previous recovery on employment most of the time, observed Tasci.

Sign the “worrying” unemployment model

But an unprecedented change in unemployment trends could indicate that knowledge workers in white collar will suffer a very different fate in the AI era.

For the first time, workers from non-routine cognitive professions now represent a larger share of the unemployed than workers in non-routine manual jobs (i.e. support for health care, personal care and food preparation).

“Workers who have been employed for the last time in non -routine cognitive jobs have always taken into account the smallest part of the unemployed in the data, until recently,” said Tasci, calling it a “worrying” sign. “This changing scheme could be indicative of increasing the risk of unemployment for these workers in the future.”

This is because the proof has assembled that the AI already limits the number of entry -level jobs that have generally been completed by recent university graduates.

Meanwhile, AI does not present much more additional risks for routine jobs or for non-routine manual jobs that will always require more physical personal interaction, he explained.

The increased threat to knowledge workers in white collar also presents a higher risk for the economy than in the past, because they now represent almost 45% of total employment, compared to 30% in the early 1980s.

“A much greater risk of unemployment and prospects for anemic recovery for these workers could lead to a drop in the next slowdown in the labor market,” said Tasci. “The unemployed recovery carried out by the anemic growth of routine professions could be repeated, this time mainly due to an anemic recovery in the non -routine cognitive professions.”

But others are not so dark about AI and the labor market. Technological investor David Sacks, which also serves as a Tsar de la Maison Blanche on AI and Crypto, has sought to demystify several “challenges of dispute” on general artificial intelligence.

In a post X on Saturday, he said that there was a “clear division of work between humans and AI”, which means that people still need to feed the necessary AI models, give them extensive prompts and check their production.

“This means that the apocalyptic predictions of job loss are as overhanged as the AGE itself,” added Sacks. “Instead, the truism that” you are not going to lose your job at the intermediary of the AI but to someone who uses AI better than you “holds well.”