The Worst-Case Future for White-Collar Workers Is Already Taking Shape

Also In This Episode

• Indeed Hiring Lab: New Year, Same Resolutions – February 2026 US Labor Market Update
• Department of Labor Weekly Unemployment Claims, February 19, 2026

Full Episode Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Welcome back to Cornering the Job Market. Today’s Thursday, February 19th. I’m Pete Newsome, and today’s workforce news and headlines include a new report from Madeig’s Hiring Lab that shows job seekers came into this year fired up and ready to move, but employers aren’t matching their energy. I’ll break down what’s going on there. Also, this morning’s weekly unemployment claims drop to their lowest level in weeks, but underneath that number is a trend that tells more of a story, and everyone needs to understand that. So, once again, good headlines, but there’s more to it once you dig a little bit.

0:32

But first, The Atlantic just published a really interesting piece today. It’s something that everyone should read. It’s an article titled The Worst Case Future for White Collar Workers, and it’s by Annie Lowry. The subtitle is The Well Off Have No Experience with the Job Market That Might Be Coming. Sounds pretty ominous, right? I mean, it kind of is. We’re seeing a lot of that lately. Some of the new AI tools that have been released just in the past couple of weeks have really riled a lot of people. There was a big tweet that went viral last week. Time just blurs. It was, I think it was just last week, where it’s had around 100 million views, and people are really kind of waking up who haven’t been paying attention to how severe things could potentially be. Now, the author of this article, Lowry, says she’s not sure this worst case scenario will actually play out. No one is. So it’s good to see that she claimed that. But the data she presents is real and it’s worth looking at in a little detail. Americans with bachelor’s degrees now account for 25% of all who are unemployed, and that’s a record. High school graduates are finding jobs faster now than college graduates, which has never happened before. So just stop and think about what that means. A college degree was supposed to be a safety net, it was supposed to be a key that opened doors that would otherwise be unavailable, and it’s just not working the way it used to. Now, the author acknowledges the counter-arguments. Now, also some companies claim to be having layoffs because of AI.

2:25

This new phrase AI washing is getting thrown around, uh thrown around a lot lately. She throws around too, where companies are saying that they’re having layoffs for AI when in fact they’re struggling for another reason or downsizing for another reason. Poor management, bad finances, whatever it might be. But underneath all of that, things are shifting. She shared some other examples that some I haven’t seen. Baker McKenzie is one of the biggest law firms in the world. They cut 700 employees. That’s a massive number. I haven’t seen that headline. Salesforce, of course, they got rid of hundreds of workers, KPMG, who’s one of the big four auditing firms. Lots of examples in here that aren’t small startups that are just cutting. These are some of the most established names and professional services, as she uses examples. Also, two CNBC reporters with no engineering experience used AI to build a clone of Monday.com’s workflow management platform. I hadn’t heard the story either. I swear, even though my whole Twitter timeline or X timeline is AI, I just can’t keep up. Things are moving too quickly. But apparently these reporters did that in under an hour for less than $15. And when that story published, Monday.com stock dropped 21%. So this is a $5 billion company stock that tanked because two journalists replicated its core product in 60 minutes. I mean, what world are we living in right now? Um I’m amused by it, which is I shouldn’t be because it actually terrifies me anyway.

3:59

But that’s just the state of things. So Lowry, the author of the article, draws a sharp line between two types of economic problems. In a regular recession, a cyclical downturn. Washington has a playbook for that, right? Stimulus checks, rate cuts, infrastructure spending. But if AI eliminates white-collar work, that’s a structural unemployment problem. Businesses wouldn’t need the skills that the workers possess. That’s the risk. And so the playbook, the traditional playbook, just doesn’t apply because the jobs are gone and they’re not needed. They’re not going to come back when they are. And so you you know the the case that, hey, the AI is going to create new jobs. Yes, I hope it does. But ask yourself the logical question, which I always say in this context, shouldn’t we assume that AI is going to be better at those jobs too? So we’ll see what happens. It’s a deep article that makes some historical comparisons. For example, machine technology destroyed manufacturing towns in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Gary, Indiana. And they never, they never recovered, right? So that I think is the whole point of the story, the main point of the story anyway. So again, my take on this is that the white-collar labor market is already shifting more than most people realize. I’m seeing it, I’m hearing it from my peers and staffing. Companies are scrutinizing things differently, whether they should replace people who leave. Can AI handle it? That question is being asked at every size company, and I only think it’s going to pick up speed. We also have a story from Indeed’s Hiring Lab. They shared some interesting data this morning. The title of the article says New Year, same resolutions. Job searches on Indeed surged up to 31% higher in January compared to December.

5:55

Okay, so people come back and they start searching for jobs. We know that. That’s not out of the ordinary. But job postings in January didn’t match that. So 31% increase in people looking. Postings stayed flat. They were still pretty much where they were in December. And that is not good. Also, another reference to being in staffing, we expect the holiday season to be slow. Once you get past Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, really slow time to hiring in the hiring space, but then we see January picking back up, at least by the end of January. And that hasn’t happened. That seasonal pattern just hasn’t appeared this year. So indeed is calling it what a lot of other people have referenced as a low hire, low fire environment. They may have been the ones that coined it earlier. I’ve seen it a lot over the past year. And so we just haven’t, we just haven’t seen much change. There’s more of the same. Seasonal and blue-collar sectors like retail, uh, driving and logistics saw the steepest posting declines in January. So, okay, that makes sense. A lot of high of people get hired in in uh December for the holidays, and then we don’t need them anymore, or those companies don’t need them anymore anymore. But white-collar professional sectors saw job posting gains um exceeding 5% relative to early December. So at least small bright spot, I guess. I mean, those gains are really modest, but we’ll take the what Indeed calls pockets of opportunity. I guess that’s a good way to phrase it. I like to say we’re looking for we’ll take bright spots or positivity wherever we can.

7:29

And then finally, from that report, job openings per unemployed person dropped to 0.9% in December 2025, which is the lowest since mid-2017. So lower than any time outside of COVID, anyway. So that is what is going on with Indeed. But speaking of unemployment, the Department of Labor released its weekly numbers this morning, and on the surface, it looks good. It looks like a strong report. Initial claims for the week ending February 14th dropped to 206,000, which is a decrease of 23,000 from the prior week. And the four-week moving average went down to 219,000. So for comparison’s sake, it was 224,000 a year ago. So layoffs are low still, even though we’ve seen some big announcements historically that’s they are low. But the number of people collecting benefits rose up to almost 1.9 million, up 17,000 from the prior week. So while layoffs are low, the people who lose their jobs are taking longer to find another one. And that is what is relevant from this report. And it’s consistent with the indeed data we just talked about, right? More people searching, fewer companies hiring. So even though we’re not seeing big layoff announcements, that is the um that’s the trend right now that that is absolutely going to affect anyone who loses their job.

8:53

And that’s the deal. Um quickly, biggest increases in initial claims, Texas, um, which was driven by manufacturing and construction. Construction, that’s the second time I’ve seen that reference lately. We’re supposed to be in a construction boom. So I don’t know why we’d see higher claims there. Um, but some states saw decreases, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Illinois specifically. So it’s it’s it’s a market that’s just not moving a whole lot. I mean, that is the bottom line. But it just know that if you lose your job right now, you’re gonna have a harder time firing finding one. That is something that you know when we see, I’ve seen so much uh written over the past couple of years about quiet quitting, people not wanting to go back in the office. If you’re an employee right now, you don’t hold any cards. If you have now, if you have a rare skill set, uh always, right? You have leverage. But if you just are someone with general skills, specifically in the white-collar space right now, where there is potentially a large candidate pool, you’re gonna have a tough time right now. So that’s not me. I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but hold on to your job until you find another one. This is not a time to leave and then figure it out as you go. That’s my strong advice.

10:11

So, man, yesterday was so positive, and today just not nearly as much. But let’s leave with a fun fact before I say goodbye. And that is that Zoom fatigue apparently is a real thing. It’s caused by uh the delay when you’re speaking with someone on Zoom and nonverbal cues. I still see lots of nonverbal cues on Zoom. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. I I think it’s boring to sit on a Zoom call too long, and it’s not as interesting as being in person. But uh, there we go. Zoom fatigue, fun fact. Um I always deliver it, whether it’s fun or not. But thank you for listening today. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone who you think might be interested. I will always share the news as it comes out. So um look forward to talking to you soon.