{
  "id": 9148036,
  "title": "How AI could wipe out one in five white-collar jobs in four years",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/22/how-ai-could-wipe-out-one-in-five-white-collar-jobs-in-four-years",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-22T13:43:30.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The National UAE",
    "slug": "the-national-uae",
    "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/2026/09/22/how-ai-could-wipe-out-one-in-five-white-collar-jobs-in-four-years/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A new study from the Anthropic Institute suggests that artificial intelligence could displace one in five white-collar workers within the next four years. The research, titled \"Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI,\" explores how varying levels of AI capability and adoption could impact the US economy, including GDP, wages, and unemployment. Three potential scenarios are outlined in the report.\n\nIn the modest scenario, AI improves but only partially replaces cognitive work, resulting in relatively small disruption to the labor market. Unemployment among white-collar workers would reach 2.9 percent by 2030.\n\nUnder the major scenario, AI capabilities and adoption advance more quickly, allowing the technology to perform a larger amount of cognitive work and displace more workers. Unemployment rises to 4.5 percent.\n\nThe extreme scenario presents the most disruptive potential for white-collar employment. With exceptionally rapid AI advancements, AI could substitute for a substantial portion of cognitive work, significantly reshaping demand for human labor. In this scenario, unemployment among white-collar workers could reach 17.9 percent by 2030, meaning almost one in five workers in management, professional, technical, sales, and office-based occupations would be unemployed.\n\nWhile AI could potentially create a larger economic pie, the distribution of that wealth among workers is uncertain. The report raises questions about whether workers will receive a larger share of the wealth generated by AI. Currently, for every dollar the US economy produces, about 60 cents goes to workers and 40 cents to capital. However, the study suggests that as AI becomes more capable and widely adopted, the gap between workers and capital could close or shift in favor of capital. In the most extreme scenario, workers' share of economic output could fall to 45.2 percent, while capital's share rises to 54.8 percent.",
  "summary": "More than one in five white-collar workers could be unemployed within four years, the Anthropic Institute's research arm says. In a report called Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI , researchers at the Anthropic Institute have mapped out how varying levels of artificial intelligence capability and adoption could affect the US economy, including GDP, wages and unemployment. When it comes to…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}