Job Displacement — By 2030
White-Collar Professional Displacement by 2030
Confidence range: 15% to 30%
An estimated 20% of white-collar professional roles in law, accounting, and finance face displacement by 2030. LLMs can now perform contract review, financial analysis, and audit procedures at near-professional quality. The Big Four accounting firms have all announced significant restructuring plans citing AI-driven productivity. Junior and mid-level roles are most exposed, while senior advisory work remains largely protected.
Most AI-and-jobs claims come from journalism or social media. Toggle to to see what the rigorous evidence actually says.
Filter by evidence quality
How This Prediction Has Evolved
Each data point is from a different source. Dots are color-coded by evidence tier.
Sources (16)
Gartner projects 50% of middle management positions will be eliminated or restructured as AI handles reporting, coordination, and performance monitoring tasks.
Indeed analysis finds 26% of jobs face radical transformation from AI. Paralegals face 80% automation risk by 2026. Legal research and contract review most affected.
In sharp contrast to the past two centuries, AI will shift relative demand toward occupations with lower education, lower wages, and a greater share of male workers.
Professional services occupations face the largest task-level AI exposure among high-income economies, with 18-25% of tasks fully automatable by current LLMs.
EY invested $1.4B in AI, reporting that AI-assisted audit procedures now cover 40% of routine testing tasks previously performed by junior staff.
JPMorgan disclosed deploying LLM-based tools across legal, compliance, and research functions, with estimated productivity gains equivalent to 3,000+ full-time roles.
Tasks with higher AI exposure subsequently experience reduced labor demand. 1 SD increase in AI exposure reduces relative demand for related skills by 2%.
Big Four firms project 15-25% workforce restructuring over the next 3 years as AI handles routine audit, tax, and advisory tasks.
LLMs can now perform contract review, legal research, and document drafting at near-associate quality. Junior associate hiring at major firms has declined 12% since 2022.
High-paid, white-collar occupations in business, finance, and law are among the most exposed to generative AI disruption.
~80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their tasks affected by GPTs. Legal, accounting, and financial analysis are among the highest-exposure occupations.
RCT: ChatGPT reduced task completion time by 40% and raised output quality by 18%. Low-ability workers benefited most, compressing the productivity distribution.
Banking, insurance, and capital markets could see up to 50% of current work activities automated. Legal research and contract review are among the most automatable tasks.
Two-thirds of US occupations are exposed to some degree of AI automation. Administrative and legal professions face the highest exposure rates at 46%.