Note: Wage data covers non-farm wage and salary workers and do not cover the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, or household workers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects total employment to climb by about 6.7 million jobs between 2023 and 2033. Home health aides, software developers, and restaurant cooks are set to gain the most total jobs. We have [a report](https://usafacts.org/articles/what-are-the-fastest-growing-professions-in-america/) that digs into that data, but I found myself interested in the other side of things.
The BLS also projects job loss. I [posted a while back](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1glvmac/projected_fastest_declining_jobs_in_the_us_oc/) on the occupations projected to shrink the most on a percentage basis, but some of the niche occupations on that list (like typists and switchboard operators) felt a little old-timey. So here’s a similar list of projected *total* job loss by occupation. Note that annual wages for all of the occupations on this list range from around $30,000 to just under $100,000.
* Cashiers top the list, with a projected drop of roughly 353,000 positions (11% of total cashier jobs)
* Customer service representatives are projected to lose 148,800 jobs (5%)
* Office clerks are projected to lose 147,500 jobs (6%)
* Fast-food cooks are projected to lose 93,700 jobs (14%). Interestingly, *restaurant* cooks are on the BLS’ list of occupations projected to gain the most jobs (244,500).
* Supervisors of retail sales workers are projected to lose 90,500 jobs (6%)
Some of the steeper percentage declines on this list:
* Word processors and typists are projected for a 38% contraction
* Data entry keyers are projected to lose 25% of jobs
* Telemarketers are projected to lose 22% of jobs
A note on the distinction between an “occupation” and a “job”: An occupation is the broad type of work a person performs, while a job is the specific role someone holds. It’s specific to each person at a point in time, based on their skills and experience. A pediatrician’s occupation would be “doctor,” and their job would be “pediatrician.”
So… software developers are set to gain jobs and computer programmers are set to lose. Interesting lol
I’m amazed that there are *any* word processors or typists left to lose jobs at all.
I guess its good to be an engineer.
Bookkeeping & accounting in top 5 projected job losses?
That’s hilarious.
Where is taxi and truck drivers?
So what happens when the majority of the population doesn’t work and can’t find a job?
It’s puzzling to me that truck drivers and other easily automated jobs aren’t on that list. I mean we will surely have the technology to drastically reduce staffing in shipping by 2033, it’s really just a political thing at this point.
I work at a grocery store right now and our cashiers also pull doing security and customer service, getting rid of them would send the store crashing down, even though we have mostly self checkout
Why cooks? That doesn’t seem intuitive.
I was called a doomer because I’d say this would happen.
Do servers fall in here anywhere?
Who will be left to purchase the goods and services produced by our AI replacements?
Is there any data concerning what choice of voting is specific to majority in each category?
I had no idea there were even 84K Beekeepers!
EDIT: Oh Bookkeepers, that makes more sense.
I think this is overly optimistic. At a certain point AI is going to be better than humans at many of these tasks and at that point, why hire the person? Why pay more for worse labor?
It’s hard to gauge when the switch will really happen because AI is improving exponentially but I’d be fairly confident in saying it’ll happen by 2033. Maybe this year. Maybe in a few. It’s just all but certain that jobs like trucking, cashiers, and even stuff like programming/marketing will all but disappear pretty soon.
AI is just going to become more effective as time progresses. But jobs that require hands-on work or critical thinking are not going away.
Jobs with a lot of documentation or repetitive motions are ripe for AI to reduce the workforce in.
I know my job will be gone at some point , just hoping to make it to retirement age before that happens because I don’t want to start something else at this point.
I know people think of the job lost to AI are gonna be the general public jobs. I honestly think AI would be more effective leaders than most CEOs
How the hell does anyone still have any hope for the future at this point?
Whichever way you look at things, everything is only set to get progressively worse
RIP when your 15 years of work experience is all in the top 10.
That means UBI is close behind, right? Right?!
AI gonna steal cooks’ jobs too?
Please post which occupations are projected to *gain* the most jobs in a parallel post?
I am not at all surprised about cashiers, every time I walk in Walmart there are more customers at self check outs then at a register with an employee it’s the same at Target as well.
Why, for the love of all that is holy, aren’t telemarketers higher on this list??
I think whats scariest is only 6.7M jobs being created in 10 years time. Between boomers retiring, college graduates, neets, AI (what it becomes), and then this organic estimated job growth it doesnt seem like good prospects for the average person.
The really interesting part to me is that “driver” doesn’t appear on this list.
There are millions of professional drivers of some description or other in the United States. Surely those jobs will eventually be threatened by self-driving cars?
And yet the advice that I get as an unemployed recent college grad is “there will always be menial wage cashier jobs if you’re strapped for cash”
How about trucking, real estate, car salesmen? Those will lose the most jobs IMO. It will take some policy change, but it will come.
Where the heck are these “clerks” for things like accounting and payroll and other office jobs? I honestly haven’t seen one stateside in over a decade.
It’s interesting to compare these to my surroundings. Working in my accounting department, we are actually expanding by 2-3 positions instead of cutting back, which is not the projections here.
How is “marketing” not on the on the loser list? I work in marketing and I feel like certain chunks of my job could be automated away literally right now. Like writing / sending email campaigns and social posts.
But I’m stubborn and old and refuse to use any “tools” for that stuff. I write every single thing from scratch (or at least recycle from older stuff I already wrote).
Customers are set to lose a lot of jobs
Phew, thought we were late for our Daily Doomer Graph!
The end is nigh! Jobs are falling like flies! You NEED to be afraid!!!
![[OC] Projected job loss in the US](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/r3ketveohq4f1-1920x1024.png)
36 comments
Source: [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-largest-job-declines.htm)
Tools: Datawrapper, Illustrator
Note: Wage data covers non-farm wage and salary workers and do not cover the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, or household workers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects total employment to climb by about 6.7 million jobs between 2023 and 2033. Home health aides, software developers, and restaurant cooks are set to gain the most total jobs. We have [a report](https://usafacts.org/articles/what-are-the-fastest-growing-professions-in-america/) that digs into that data, but I found myself interested in the other side of things.
The BLS also projects job loss. I [posted a while back](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1glvmac/projected_fastest_declining_jobs_in_the_us_oc/) on the occupations projected to shrink the most on a percentage basis, but some of the niche occupations on that list (like typists and switchboard operators) felt a little old-timey. So here’s a similar list of projected *total* job loss by occupation. Note that annual wages for all of the occupations on this list range from around $30,000 to just under $100,000.
* Cashiers top the list, with a projected drop of roughly 353,000 positions (11% of total cashier jobs)
* Customer service representatives are projected to lose 148,800 jobs (5%)
* Office clerks are projected to lose 147,500 jobs (6%)
* Fast-food cooks are projected to lose 93,700 jobs (14%). Interestingly, *restaurant* cooks are on the BLS’ list of occupations projected to gain the most jobs (244,500).
* Supervisors of retail sales workers are projected to lose 90,500 jobs (6%)
Some of the steeper percentage declines on this list:
* Word processors and typists are projected for a 38% contraction
* Data entry keyers are projected to lose 25% of jobs
* Telemarketers are projected to lose 22% of jobs
A note on the distinction between an “occupation” and a “job”: An occupation is the broad type of work a person performs, while a job is the specific role someone holds. It’s specific to each person at a point in time, based on their skills and experience. A pediatrician’s occupation would be “doctor,” and their job would be “pediatrician.”
So… software developers are set to gain jobs and computer programmers are set to lose. Interesting lol
I’m amazed that there are *any* word processors or typists left to lose jobs at all.
I guess its good to be an engineer.
Bookkeeping & accounting in top 5 projected job losses?
That’s hilarious.
Where is taxi and truck drivers?
So what happens when the majority of the population doesn’t work and can’t find a job?
It’s puzzling to me that truck drivers and other easily automated jobs aren’t on that list. I mean we will surely have the technology to drastically reduce staffing in shipping by 2033, it’s really just a political thing at this point.
I work at a grocery store right now and our cashiers also pull doing security and customer service, getting rid of them would send the store crashing down, even though we have mostly self checkout
Why cooks? That doesn’t seem intuitive.
I was called a doomer because I’d say this would happen.
Do servers fall in here anywhere?
Who will be left to purchase the goods and services produced by our AI replacements?
Is there any data concerning what choice of voting is specific to majority in each category?
I had no idea there were even 84K Beekeepers!
EDIT: Oh Bookkeepers, that makes more sense.
I think this is overly optimistic. At a certain point AI is going to be better than humans at many of these tasks and at that point, why hire the person? Why pay more for worse labor?
It’s hard to gauge when the switch will really happen because AI is improving exponentially but I’d be fairly confident in saying it’ll happen by 2033. Maybe this year. Maybe in a few. It’s just all but certain that jobs like trucking, cashiers, and even stuff like programming/marketing will all but disappear pretty soon.
AI is just going to become more effective as time progresses. But jobs that require hands-on work or critical thinking are not going away.
Jobs with a lot of documentation or repetitive motions are ripe for AI to reduce the workforce in.
I know my job will be gone at some point , just hoping to make it to retirement age before that happens because I don’t want to start something else at this point.
I know people think of the job lost to AI are gonna be the general public jobs. I honestly think AI would be more effective leaders than most CEOs
How the hell does anyone still have any hope for the future at this point?
Whichever way you look at things, everything is only set to get progressively worse
RIP when your 15 years of work experience is all in the top 10.
That means UBI is close behind, right? Right?!
AI gonna steal cooks’ jobs too?
Please post which occupations are projected to *gain* the most jobs in a parallel post?
I am not at all surprised about cashiers, every time I walk in Walmart there are more customers at self check outs then at a register with an employee it’s the same at Target as well.
Why, for the love of all that is holy, aren’t telemarketers higher on this list??
I think whats scariest is only 6.7M jobs being created in 10 years time. Between boomers retiring, college graduates, neets, AI (what it becomes), and then this organic estimated job growth it doesnt seem like good prospects for the average person.
The really interesting part to me is that “driver” doesn’t appear on this list.
There are millions of professional drivers of some description or other in the United States. Surely those jobs will eventually be threatened by self-driving cars?
And yet the advice that I get as an unemployed recent college grad is “there will always be menial wage cashier jobs if you’re strapped for cash”
How about trucking, real estate, car salesmen? Those will lose the most jobs IMO. It will take some policy change, but it will come.
Where the heck are these “clerks” for things like accounting and payroll and other office jobs? I honestly haven’t seen one stateside in over a decade.
It’s interesting to compare these to my surroundings. Working in my accounting department, we are actually expanding by 2-3 positions instead of cutting back, which is not the projections here.
How is “marketing” not on the on the loser list? I work in marketing and I feel like certain chunks of my job could be automated away literally right now. Like writing / sending email campaigns and social posts.
But I’m stubborn and old and refuse to use any “tools” for that stuff. I write every single thing from scratch (or at least recycle from older stuff I already wrote).
Customers are set to lose a lot of jobs
Phew, thought we were late for our Daily Doomer Graph!
The end is nigh! Jobs are falling like flies! You NEED to be afraid!!!
Comments are closed.