U.S. Labor Market and Productivity

New analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that core white‑collar industries—finance, insurance, information, and professional and business services—have been quietly shrinking their headcounts for more than three years even as U.S. GDP has grown and overall private employment has risen. Economist Gad Levanon of the Burning Glass Institute finds that employment in this 'white‑collar core,' which generates over 40% of U.S. GDP and about 20% of jobs, peaked in November 2022 and is down 1.9% since then, while other private‑sector jobs are up 4.1%. From 2010 to 2019 these sectors routinely added about 569,000 jobs a year; over the last three years they have instead lost roughly 191,000 jobs annually, leaving an estimated 2.3 million 'missing' office jobs compared with the pre‑pandemic trend. Levanon argues these industries have become a main driver of the recent productivity surge by standardizing processes and automating work—steps now increasingly tied to AI—which lets companies grow output with fewer staff. That dynamic helps explain why many Americans in desk jobs feel the labor market has turned against them despite low headline unemployment and why further advances in AI could deepen job insecurity for people whose work consists largely of moving words, numbers and code on screens.