Jobs of the future · 6 min read
Which jobs are declining, and what should I do if mine is one?
Office and administrative support is projected to shrink most in the US to 2035, with customer service among the biggest losses. A shrinking field still hires.
The short answer
In the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025-35 projections, office and administrative support is the major group expected to lose the most jobs, about 752,000, with automation including AI named as a reason. Customer service representatives are projected to fall about 5%, roughly 142,000 jobs. The World Economic Forum's employer survey points the same way, with clerical roles such as cashiers, data entry clerks and administrative assistants expected to decline fastest. A shrinking occupation still has openings as people leave, but it's worth testing the work next door now.
On this page 4 sections
What's projected to shrink
| Role or group | Projected change | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Office and administrative support | About -752,000 jobs, 2025-35 | BLS |
| Customer service representatives | About -5% (-142,000 jobs), 2025-35 | BLS |
| Cashiers, ticket clerks, data entry clerks | Among fastest declining, 2025-30 | WEF employer survey |
| Administrative assistants and executive secretaries | Among fastest declining, 2025-30 | WEF employer survey |
Read your job as tasks
A job title is a bundle of tasks. Write down what you do in a typical week and sort it into three piles: routine tasks software already does somewhere, tasks it helps with, and tasks that depend on people, judgement or physical presence. The third pile is what you carry into the next role.
Where people go next
- Customer service to customer success, account management or support operations.
- Admin to operations, project coordination or office management.
- Data entry to data quality, reporting or systems administration.
- Any of these to training others on the new tools.
When you're ready to apply for the next role, OffLadder CV, our free Chrome extension, shows which of a post's must-haves your experience already covers, in that post's words.
Questions people ask
- Is my job going to disappear?
- Most declining occupations shrink slowly over a decade rather than vanishing. Tasks change first. The question that matters is which of your tasks are being automated and which ones are left.
- Why are office jobs declining?
- BLS links the decline in office and administrative support to automation tools, including AI, taking over routine tasks like data entry, scheduling and standard queries.
- Should I leave a declining field now?
- Not necessarily. Openings continue as people retire or move on. A sensible move is to keep working while you test one or two directions next door that use what you already know.
- What jobs are next door to admin work?
- Operations, project coordination, office management, HR and payroll administration, and roles that manage the systems that automated the old tasks.
- Are these numbers only for the US?
- The BLS numbers are US-only. The World Economic Forum figures come from a global survey of over 1,000 large employers, and they list the same clerical roles among the fastest-declining.
Exercises are practice, not evidence of career fit or a qualification. How to read our guides and report a correction.
Sources
- Total employment projected to grow 3.5 percent between 2025 and 2035 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily
- Customer service representatives: job outlook · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook
- Employment Projections news release · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Future of Jobs Report 2025, chapter 2: Jobs outlook · World Economic Forum
How this page is written
Sources support the factual background, not a guarantee that an exercise predicts career fit. Fictional practice material is labelled. Dates record content updates; no independent expert review is implied. More about OffLadder.