The (AI-Driven) White-Collar Recession

Chart of the Week #44

Dear reader, you might not know this, but white-collar hiring is going through a rough patch right now. In fact, if you have a look at the chart below, it’s even lower than during the 2020 pandemic.

This kind of weakness isn’t common—it usually only happens during economic downturns (see the grayed-out zones above).

What’s even more unusual is that white-collar jobs have been contracting for 17 straight months. That's the longest streak since the 2008 financial crisis.

And when you do the math, the U.S. has lost 240,000 white-collar jobs since February 2023.

Now, if you read Matt’s “AI, Energy, and the Future of Abundance” essay last week, this might not be such a shock. As Matt pointed out, AI tools are already transforming white-collar industries, helping companies and professionals do more with fewer resources. Here are some real-world examples below:

• JPMorgan’s AI system, COIN (Contract Intelligence), can process 12,000 commercial loan agreements in seconds—a job that would take humans roughly 360,000 hours a year.

• Morgan Stanley rolled out an AI assistant called "Debrief" for its 15,000 wealth advisors. It handles note-taking and meeting summaries, saving about 30 minutes per meeting. With around 1 million Zoom calls a year, that adds up to 500,000 hours saved annually.

• At Goldman Sachs, AI can now draft 95% of an IPO prospectus in minutes—a job that used to take a 6-person team weeks to complete.

• Mark Zuckerberg, on a recent Joe Rogan podcast, said that this year Meta will have an AI that works like a “mid-level engineer writing code.”

No wonder 150,000 tech workers lost their jobs across major companies last year alone.

JD Vance’s speech at the AI Summit in Paris earlier this month—where he pushed back against global AI regulations—was a clear-cut confirmation of Matt’s thesis. And this week’s chart above drives the point home even further.

Regards,

Lau Vegys

P.S. If you haven’t read Matt’s essay yet, I highly recommend it. It might just change the way you see not only 2025 or the next four years under President Trump, but the decade ahead.