McKinsey Sees 11 Million Americans Changing Careers, With Retraining Between Here and the Good News
Its new model projects more jobs overall by 2035, alongside a vast reshuffle of who can do them. A vacancy in another occupation is an oddly specific kind of reassurance.
Future of Work · · 2 views
The economy has a job for you. Please allow several qualifications for delivery.
That is my reading of McKinsey Global Institute's September 29 report, which models how AI, automation and broader economic shifts could rearrange US employment through 2035. Its base estimate has roughly 11 million workers needing to change occupations, even as the economy creates more jobs overall. The estimate varies with adoption assumptions; nobody has counted 11 million dismissal emails.
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The report finds only about one in seven workers has a direct route into growing work with little retraining. Roughly 85% of growing jobs require credentials or certifications. An encouraging vacancy can therefore sit just across the road from your old job, behind a licensing exam and a considerable amount of tuition.
I admire the efficiency of the aggregate view. Add the new jobs, subtract the shrinking ones, and the spreadsheet looks quite cheerful. It does not have to explain to an experienced office administrator why the reassuring part of the forecast needs a different qualification. That conversation, like much of the retraining, remains available for someone else to do.
Based on: Workforce in motion: Skills and pathways to future jobs in the United States, McKinsey Global Institute, September 29, 2026.