The Decline of Jobs. The Rise of Work.

This past week I had the great opportunity to speak with 60 of the most senior leaders at a major financial firm whose heads of Data and AI had bought 150 copies of my new book, Rethinking Work for their teams and asked me to do a Q and A webinar.

One of the questions was what had changed in the time since I finished writing the book ( July of 2024) and today nearly a year later?

My answer was that the shifts I was predicting which would require us to rethink work were happening faster, in more places and with greater impact than I anticipated. What I predicted for 2028 /2029 were likely to scale in 2026/2027 but the suggestions, ideas and blue prints on how each individual and firm could adapt remained the same.

Companies have been built around the concept of jobs as a way of getting work done but increasingly jobs will be disconnected from work.

The big transition underway is from employment that is full time and done by employees who have jobs working in an office to a world where work will be done by fewer people who will mostly be away from an office who will not have full time jobs.

Unless companies rethink everything from strategy to organizational design to financial metrics to training from the ground up for where the future of work is going they will find themselves increasingly replaced by new entrants who a) source talent from anywhere in the world in highly agile and flexible ways, b)are AI first, c) invest deeply in learning and d) have talent programs reflecting the realities that reflect the different mindsets of multiple generations and an aging and declining population.

From a recent Fortune Article

In a pilot project, McKinsey built an AI agent using Microsoft’s Copilot Studio software that can monitor an email address for incoming project proposals from potential clients. When one arrives in the inbox, the agent automatically assesses the job, estimating the staffing requirements, time to completion, and budget.

It even suggests which available consultants should do the job. A human still must check what the agent produces, of course, but the technology has cut the time required to scope out a project from 20 days on average to just two days.

What impact will AI agents have on workers? “I think it will be really disruptive,” says Craig Le Clair, an analyst at research firm Forrester and the author of Random Acts of Automation.

He knows of one Netherlands-based insurance company that had 15 contractors in Bulgaria helping to process claims-related emails. The contractors determined whether an email was about a new claim or an existing one, and made sure any information, including attachments, was uploaded to the appropriate databases. AI agents now do this work—and the company fired all the Bulgarian contractors.

Read Tobi Lutke the CEO of Shopify’s memo on why he expects no additional headcount will be approved at Shopify unless it can be proved that AI cannot do it and how the entire company is going to be rewired for a new age. Whether you are a CEO or an intern it is a must read.

Recently for an AI council for marketers which I chair I sent them this article from Ethan Mollick’s substack One Useful Thing ( an absolute must subscribe) and asked them to put in the same prompt( which is in the next paragraph) but for their category or brand.

Here is the prompt Ethan put in to ChatGPT o3 model:

“Come up with 20 clever ideas for marketing slogans for a new mail-order cheese shop. Develop criteria and select the best one. Then build a financial and marketing plan for the shop, revising as needed and analyzing competition. Then generate an appropriate logo using image generator and build a website for the shop as a mockup, making sure to carry 5-10 cheeses that fit the marketing plan.”

Here is what Ethan found:

With that single prompt, in less than two minutes, the AI not only provided a list of slogans, but ranked and selected an option, did web research, developed a logo, built marketing and financial plans, and launched a demo website for me to react to. The fact that my instructions were vague, and that common sense was required to make decisions about how to address them, was not a barrier.

The question I then asked them is that if their CEO and CFO has done the same exercise and come to ask them to justify their head count and the way they currently work what would they say?

In the past 10 days I have been in two different meetings where the next revision of the multi-modal capabilities of the next version of Gemini by Google have been previewed and they far surpass (at least for the time being) the capabilities of Open AI models.

This is not the time for task forces but to align with the force of change with a sense of urgency and scale to reinvent companies

It is not just AI but many other things that are going to create the most dramatic shift in the loss of jobs but the rise of work.

I asked the same ChatGPT o3 Model to answer the prompt “why might we being see the decline of jobs but the rise of work? “

After 41 seconds of analysis here is what I got:

“Jobs” ≠ “Work”

Official payroll jobs are a narrow concept: a single employer, a W‑2, a slot in the BLS counts. Work is everything people do to create value, paid or not, whether it shows up on a company’s head‑count or not. Once you separate the two, the paradox becomes clearer:

Why payroll jobs can flatten or fall…

Automation & AI: Firms can keep revenue rising while head‑counts stay flat. U.S. job openings slid from 8.1 million in March 2024 to 7.2 million in March 2025 even though output kept growing. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Demographics: Retirements outpace new entrants in every rich economy; a smaller workforce limits the absolute number of jobs that can exist.

Risk off‑loading:Companies re‑label employees as contractors or outsource entire functions, removing positions from the payroll tally without killing the underlying tasks.

Capital‑first business models: Software, cloud services and robotics make it cheaper to buy capacity than hire people, so fewer traditional roles are created per dollar of GDP.

While work is exploding (but often invisible to job statistics)

Gig & platform labor: At least 70 million Americans will freelance in 2025, on track to pass 86 million by 2027—meaning a majority of workers will earn income outside a W‑2 at least part‑time. Fortunly

The creator / micro‑entrepreneur economy: YouTube, TikTok, Substack and Shopify have spawned a $250 billion creator economy where millions earn revenue shares, sponsorships, or merch sales—none of which count as “employment.” Forbes

Solo & very‑small businesses: Record formation of 5.5 million new business applications in 2023 shows a surge of one‑person LLCs and side‑hustle ventures. These founders are working—sometimes 70 hours a week—but they don’t appear as employees. U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Unpaid but indispensable care work: Family caregivers now provide labor valued at ~$874 billion a year in the U.S.—bigger than the pharmaceutical industry—yet it is entirely off the payroll radar. Axios

Open‑source coding, online tutoring, volunteer crisis mapping, fan‑translation, DAO moderation—all productive, often time‑intensive work outside formal employment.

AI leverage: One skilled person plus copilots or low‑cost bots can do the output of a small team, so head‑counts shrink even as the task volume—and value—expands.

Its time to rethink work