A new 10-year forecast from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts a specific number on a trend office workers have been hearing about for years: artificial intelligence and automation are projected to shrink demand for administrative jobs more than any other line of work in the economy. The projection, covering 2025 through 2035, forecasts a loss of 752,100 office and administrative support jobs, a decline BLS itself ties in part to automation tools powered by AI. It is a forecast, not a report of jobs already lost, and it comes from the same agency that publishes the monthly jobs numbers everyone already watches.
A Decade-Long Forecast, Not a Current Event
The figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections program, published August 27, 2026, in a release the Bureau labels USDL-26-1422. The program does not track jobs that have already disappeared; it models what the economy is expected to look like a decade out, based on demographic trends, historical productivity patterns, and industry growth assumptions. BLS is explicit that these are projections, not a guarantee, and that the future is assumed to behave comparably to the past under the specific assumptions built into the model.
Free retirement updates: Enrollment and claim windows come and go, and missing one can cost you real money. The free Retirement Shield newsletter keeps you ahead of the deadlines that matter. Sign up free.
Office and Administrative Work Is Projected to Shrink the Most of Any Occupation Group
Of the 22 major occupational groups the Bureau tracks, office and administrative support is projected to decline faster than any other, shedding an estimated 752,100 jobs, or 4.0 percent of the group’s workforce, between 2025 and 2035. That is a bigger projected numeric loss than any other occupational category in the report, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics release. Office and administrative support covers roles such as general office clerks, administrative assistants, and other clerical positions that handle scheduling, filing, and routine correspondence.
BLS Points to Automation, Including AI, as a Driver
The Bureau’s own analysis attributes the projected decline specifically to technology. The continued integration of automation tools, including those powered by AI, into workflows is likely to reduce demand for several office and administrative support occupations, the release states. Alongside the 2025-35 projections, BLS is also rolling out a new dataset that rates occupations by their exposure to artificial intelligence, a tool the agency says is meant to help workers, employers, and researchers gauge which jobs are more likely to be reshaped by the technology in the years ahead.
AI Is Projected to Add Jobs, Too, Just Not Clerical Ones
The same forces reshaping office work are projected to boost other parts of the economy. Computer and mathematical occupations are projected to grow 7.3 percent over the decade, among the fastest of any major occupational group, with data scientists projected to grow 34.6 percent and computer and information research scientists projected to grow 21.8 percent. BLS attributes that growth to the continued proliferation of digital tools and AI solutions across the economy — the same technology it names as a driver of the office and administrative decline. The computing infrastructure, data processing, and web hosting industry, which supports AI systems, is projected to grow 25.1 percent and add 120,400 jobs, evidence that the projections treat AI as reshaping where jobs exist rather than simply erasing them.
The Broader Jobs Picture Is Growing Slower, Too
The office and clerical decline sits inside a wider slowdown. BLS projects total U.S. employment will rise from 170.3 million to 176.2 million jobs over the decade, a 3.5 percent increase that is far below the 10.9 percent growth the economy logged over the prior 2015-25 decade. Two other occupational groups are also projected to shrink: sales and related occupations, down a projected 1.4 percent as e-commerce and AI-assisted sales tools expand, and production occupations, down a projected 0.4 percent as automated machinery spreads through manufacturing. Separately, at the industry level rather than the occupation level, federal government employment is projected to fall 3.4 percent, the steepest industry-sector decline in the report. By contrast, healthcare support and healthcare practitioner occupations are projected to be the fastest-growing groups in the economy, climbing 13.3 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively, driven largely by an aging population.
Even BLS Cautions Against Reading Too Much Into the Precise Number
The Bureau builds a caveat directly into its methodology: projections are not meant to be read as an exact forecast of the future, but as a description of what would be expected under a specific set of assumptions about productivity, technology, and labor supply. BLS notes that its models generally assume technological progress will continue in line with historical experience, and that if AI-driven change accelerates faster than history suggests, actual outcomes could diverge meaningfully from the 752,100 figure, a point spelled out in the Bureau’s own projections methods overview. For office workers today, the number is best read as a directional signal — a decade-long trend line pointing toward fewer clerical jobs — rather than a date-stamped layoff count arriving on a single day in 2035.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
More Financial Reading
