Where BLS Names AI, It Projects Fewer Jobs
This chart plots the detailed occupations in the official BLS 2025–35 employment projections by its projected job growth and its pay rank, and marks in red the occupations where BLS’s own written projection factors name artificial intelligence. It shows what the government outlook assumes about AI, not a measure of how much each occupation uses AI or proof of AI’s effect.
What does it show?
BLS projects the 48 occupations where it names AI to shed 1.7% of their jobs by 2035 combined, while all other occupations grow 4.1%; 28 of the 48 are projected to shrink.
Methodology
From the BLS Employment Projections occupational workbook (2025–35 release). Each dot is a detailed occupation in Table 1.2: its projected percent change in employment, 2025 to 2035, against the percentile rank of its 2025 median annual wage among the plotted occupations (0 = lowest paid, 100 = highest). An occupation is red when any of its entries in Table 1.12, Factors affecting occupational utilization, mentions artificial intelligence, in any industry: 48 occupations with 18.7 million jobs in 2025. These are BLS's own written reasons for its projections, so the chart shows what the official outlook assumes about AI, not independent evidence of AI's effect; it is not a measure of how much AI each occupation uses. Combined, the AI-named occupations go from 18.7 to 18.4 million jobs (-1.7%), all others +4.1%, all occupations +3.5% (dashed line). Medians: -0.3% against +3.0%. 28 of 48 AI-named occupations are projected to shrink, against 204 of 783 others. In 44 of the 48 the factor naming AI says the occupation's share of employment decreases; in the other 4 it says the share increases. BLS also expects a falling share for 272 other occupations for reasons that do not name AI (automation, outsourcing, weaker demand and others): their median is -1.1% and combined change +1.1%, so slower projected growth is not unique to the occupations where BLS names AI. A factor that cites automation or machine learning without naming AI does not make an occupation red. 6 occupations without a published median wage are counted in the totals but not plotted, including Actors among the AI-named. Projections are BLS estimates, not forecasts of any one employer, and are revised each year.