A cashier rings up your groceries today. The federal government's own numbers say roughly 314,000 of those jobs won't exist anymore by 2034.
That figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' official employment projections for 2024 through 2034, the same data the government uses to plan workforce programs. Cashiers aren't even the fastest shrinking job on the list. That title goes to word processors and typists, an occupation expected to lose more than a third of its workforce in the same span.
Most of these declines happen gradually, through fewer new hires and slower replacement of retiring workers, rather than sudden mass layoffs. Even so, the pattern has been building for years and shows no sign of reversing. The World Economic Forum's own employer survey points to the same clerical and administrative jobs shrinking fastest worldwide through 2030, a strong signal this trend keeps running well past the next decade.
Cashiers
Self-checkout lanes were the start. Now stores are testing frictionless checkout, where cameras and sensors track what you grab and bill you automatically without a register at all.
Cashier employment is projected to fall by roughly 314,000 jobs from 2024 to 2034, the single largest numeric decline of any occupation the government tracks. That's not a percentage buried in a footnote. It's the biggest job loss, period, out of hundreds of occupations in the federal employment matrix.
Cashiering isn't disappearing everywhere at once. Small grocery stores, gas stations, and specialty shops will keep hiring people to run registers for years. But big chain retailers have every incentive to keep cutting headcount at checkout, and the trend line only points one direction.
Retail trade as a whole is one of only four sectors expected to lose jobs over the decade, and cashiers account for the largest single piece of that shrinkage. The retailers still growing are mostly the ones investing in delivery, logistics, and warehouse jobs instead of front-of-store staff, which means the openings in retail are shifting location as much as they're shrinking in number.
Bank tellers
Walk into a bank branch today and you'll notice something. There are fewer teller windows than there used to be, and more of them sit empty.
Employment of tellers is projected to decline 13 percent from 2024 to 2034, driven mostly by mobile check deposits and improved ATM technology that lets people handle routine transactions without ever talking to a person. Some banks now use video kiosks so a teller working from one location can help customers at several different branches through a screen, instead of every branch needing its own dedicated teller behind the counter.
The job isn't gone. About 29,800 openings are still expected each year, mostly to replace tellers who retire or move into other roles. But the total number of teller jobs in America keeps shrinking every year, and there's no sign that trend reverses.
The bigger shift is what tellers do all day. Fewer customers ever need to stand in front of a window for a routine deposit or withdrawal, so the tellers who remain increasingly handle the transactions that require judgment, like flagging a suspicious check or walking a customer through a new account. Branch banking hasn't disappeared, but it needs far fewer hands than it used to.
Word processors and typists
If you've never heard of this job, that's part of the point. It used to be common in offices everywhere, and now it's vanishing faster than any other occupation the government tracks.
Word processors and typists is projected to shrink 36.1 percent from 2024 to 2034, the steepest decline of any of the more than 800 detailed occupations in the federal employment matrix. Voice dictation software, AI writing tools, and the simple fact that most professionals now type their own documents have all but erased the need for a dedicated typing pool.
This one is close to a case study in how technology slowly kills a job. It didn't happen through one dramatic announcement. Word processing software chipped away at typing pools through the 1980s and 90s, and AI is finishing what that first wave of automation started.
The numbers are small in absolute terms, about 40,000 people currently hold this job title, dropping to roughly 25,600 by 2034, but the rate of decline is what makes it stand out. No other occupation the government tracks is shrinking faster on a percentage basis, which says less about the size of the job and more about how completely the underlying task has been automated.
Telephone operators
Directory assistance used to be a real job. You'd dial a number, an operator would look up a listing, and you'd get connected. Almost nobody does that anymore.
Telephone operators are projected to see employment fall 27.5 percent from 2024 to 2034, making it one of the fastest shrinking jobs the government tracks. Smartphones put every phone number and business listing a few taps away, and most companies replaced human directory assistance with automated systems years ago.
What's left of this occupation mostly serves niche needs, like international calling assistance or specialized business lines, where a person still adds value. For most everyday uses, the job that once connected callers to numbers has been replaced by search engines and apps that do the same thing instantly and for free.
The occupation is already small, about 4,000 people currently work as telephone operators nationwide, a number expected to fall to roughly 2,900 by 2034. It's a reminder that some of the jobs on this list aren't shrinking because they were ever huge to begin with. They're shrinking because the need for the role itself has almost entirely disappeared.
Switchboard operators
Call a company's main line today and you'll usually hit an automated menu before you ever reach a person. That wasn't always the case, and the job responsible for routing those calls by hand is disappearing fast.
Switchboard operators, including answering services, are projected to decline 26.3 percent from 2024 to 2034. Automated phone trees, cloud-based phone systems, and virtual receptionist software now handle most of the routing that a human operator used to do, and businesses have embraced the cost savings.
Answering services for medical offices, law firms, and small businesses still employ some switchboard operators, since certain callers want a live person instead of a menu of button options. But even that niche is shrinking as AI-powered virtual assistants get better at sounding human and handling routine requests without involving a person at all.
This occupation held about 36,600 jobs in 2024, a number projected to drop by roughly 9,600 over the following decade. Unlike some of the smaller occupations on this list, switchboard operating is still a meaningful number of jobs today, which makes the pace of the decline more noticeable to the people currently doing the work.
Data entry keyers
Scan a form today and software can often read every field on it correctly without a person retyping a single line. That single shift has quietly hollowed out an entire occupation.
Data entry keyers are projected to decline 25.9 percent from 2024 to 2034. Optical character recognition and automated data capture tools can now pull information directly from scanned documents, invoices, and forms with minimal human review, cutting deep into a job that used to be a common entry point into office work.
This decline has been building for a long time, and it's accelerating rather than slowing down. Every new wave of software, from basic scanning tools to today's AI-powered document processing, chips away at what's left of the occupation. The remaining jobs increasingly involve reviewing what the software got wrong, not typing from scratch.
The scale of the shift is significant. Data entry keying employed about 141,600 people in 2024, and that's projected to fall to roughly 104,900 by 2034, a loss of nearly 37,000 jobs. That makes it one of the larger numeric declines among the fastest shrinking occupations, not just one of the steepest by percentage.
Telemarketers
The robocall you hung up on last week might not have had a human on the other end at all. That's part of why this job keeps shrinking.
Telemarketer employment is projected to fall 22.1 percent from 2024 to 2034. Strict do-not-call regulations already cut into the pool of people willing to answer unknown numbers, and AI-powered voice systems can now handle basic sales scripts and lead qualification without paying a human caller.
Live telemarketers haven't vanished completely, especially for complex sales calls that require real persuasion or handling objections on the fly. But the routine cold-calling work that used to employ hundreds of thousands of people is increasingly split between automated dialers and a shrinking pool of live callers who mostly step in when the bot hits a wall.
The occupation currently employs about 67,400 people, a number projected to drop to roughly 52,500 by 2034. It's a sizable chunk of the workforce for a job that most people assume already runs almost entirely on autopilot, which shows how much of the calling volume out there is still handled by a person reading from a script.
Order clerks
Open a food delivery app or an online store and place an order without ever speaking to a single person. That's become the default, not the exception.
Order clerks are projected to decline 17.2 percent from 2024 to 2034, and the fact that so many orders now come in through apps and self-checkout-style systems is largely why. Whether it's a restaurant app, an online retailer's checkout page, or a grocery delivery service, customers now place most orders themselves without ever speaking to a clerk.
This shift happened fast in some industries and slower in others. Restaurants that once relied heavily on phone orders have pushed hard toward apps and online menus, partly to cut labor costs and partly because customers now expect it. The clerks who remain tend to handle the orders too complicated or unusual for a self-service system to manage.
Order clerks sit inside a broader information clerk category that's also losing ground, though not as fast. The government still projects about 149,200 openings a year across information clerk jobs, mostly from people leaving the field rather than new positions being created, which is a pattern showing up across almost every occupation on this list.
Payroll and timekeeping clerks
A single payroll platform can now calculate hours, overtime, and tax withholding for an entire company with barely any manual review, something that used to require a whole team working spreadsheets by hand.
Payroll and timekeeping clerks are projected to see employment fall 16.7 percent from 2024 to 2034. A lot of companies have also shifted to outsourced payroll providers that get the job done with a fraction of the in-house staff it used to take, on top of the software doing more of the calculating itself.
The job hasn't disappeared, since someone still needs to review the numbers, handle exceptions, and answer employee questions about their paychecks. But the sheer volume of manual work that used to justify a full department of payroll clerks has shrunk dramatically, and automated systems keep getting better at catching errors before a human ever sees them.
Employment here is projected to fall from about 161,100 jobs in 2024 to roughly 134,200 by 2034, a loss of 27,000 positions. Companies aren't cutting these roles because payroll is less important. They're cutting them because one clerk with the right software can now do what used to take several people.
File clerks
Most offices don't keep rows of filing cabinets stuffed with paper anymore. The paperwork moved to the cloud, and a big chunk of the job that once managed it went with it.
File clerks are projected to decline 15.9 percent from 2024 to 2034. Cloud-based document storage and electronic filing systems have replaced physical recordkeeping in most industries, and the software that manages digital files lets other office workers absorb tasks that used to require a dedicated file clerk.
Healthcare, legal, and government offices still generate plenty of paperwork, and some move slower toward fully digital systems than other industries. But even in those fields, the trend points toward scanning documents once and storing them electronically rather than keeping a physical filing system that needs a person to maintain it.
The occupation is projected to shrink from about 84,300 jobs in 2024 to roughly 70,900 by 2034. That's a meaningful loss for a job that, thirty years ago, was considered a stable and unremarkable part of running any office, large or small.
Prepress technicians and workers
Before anything gets printed, someone has to check that the text and images line up correctly on the page. That job is shrinking as the print industry itself shrinks.
Prepress technicians and workers are projected to see employment decline 14.6 percent from 2024 to 2034. Desktop publishing software lets designers handle much of the prepress work themselves now, and the broader decline in print media, from newspapers to catalogs, has reduced the overall volume of work available in the field.
Specialty printing, packaging, and high-end publishing still need skilled prepress workers who understand color accuracy and print production. But the days of large prepress departments at every newspaper and print shop are over, and the industry that remains is smaller and more specialized than it used to be.
Government data shows the occupation falling from about 26,200 jobs in 2024 to roughly 22,300 by 2034. It's a smaller occupation than most others on this list, but the decline tracks closely with the broader shrinkage of print media that's been underway for two decades now.
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks
A small business owner can connect a bank account directly to accounting software today and watch invoices and receipts sort themselves automatically. That kind of tracking used to be somebody's entire job.
Employment of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks is projected to decline 6 percent from 2024 to 2034. As organizations increasingly rely on specialized accounting software, the same amount of financial recordkeeping gets done with fewer people, and that's expected to keep pushing employment down through the next decade.
There's still real demand here. About 170,000 openings for bookkeeping and accounting clerks are projected each year, mostly to replace people who retire or move into other roles. It's a shrinking occupation, not a vanishing one, and the clerks who stick around increasingly need to know how to use the software rather than just keep records the old fashioned way.
It's worth noting how this compares to the sharper declines elsewhere on this list. A 6 percent drop sounds mild next to word processors losing 36 percent of their jobs, and that gap says something real. The more a job depends on judgment, even basic judgment about which numbers look off, the more it tends to survive automation intact.
Customer service representatives
Try to reach a real person at most companies these days and you'll probably talk to a chatbot first. That's not an accident.
Customer service representative employment is projected to decline 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, a loss of roughly 154,000 jobs. Chatbots, mobile apps, automated phone menus, and self-service portals can now resolve a lot of basic questions that used to require a live representative, and retail in particular has leaned hard into automating this work.
Human reps aren't going away completely. Complicated billing disputes, insurance claims, and account problems still tend to need a person who can think through an unusual situation. About 341,700 openings are still projected each year in this field, mostly from turnover. But the easy, repetitive calls that used to fill most of a rep's day are increasingly handled by software instead.
This is also one of the biggest occupations in the entire country, with roughly 2.8 million people currently working as customer service representatives. A 5 percent decline against a number that large still means tens of thousands of fewer jobs available to the next generation of workers, even though the percentage looks modest compared to some smaller occupations on this list.
Claims adjusters, examiners, and investigators
When your car gets dinged in a parking lot, the person assessing the damage might increasingly be an algorithm looking at photos you uploaded yourself.
Employment of claims adjusters, examiners, and investigators is projected to decline 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, and the government specifically points to AI tools that can now review photos of property damage and produce a payout estimate without an adjuster ever visiting the site in person.
This is one of the clearer examples of AI directly replacing a specific task rather than just supporting it. Insurers still need adjusters for complex claims, disputes, and situations involving fraud or unusual damage. But routine auto and property claims are increasingly processed with far less human involvement than they were even five years ago, and that shift shows up directly in the government's own employment numbers.
The pay in this field is decent, with a median annual wage of $76,790, which makes the decline notable. This isn't a low-wage clerical job getting automated away. It's a solidly middle-class career that AI tools are starting to compress from the inside, one task at a time.
Medical transcriptionists
A doctor can now speak directly into a device and watch accurate text appear on the screen in real time. That leaves a lot less work for a transcriptionist waiting to type it up later.
Employment of medical transcriptionists is projected to decline roughly 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, a loss of about 2,200 jobs nationwide. Software that turns spoken words into accurate text almost instantly means a doctor can finish documenting a visit before ever leaving the exam room, without waiting on a transcriptionist to type it up hours or days later.
The job hasn't disappeared. About 7,400 openings are still projected each year, mostly to replace workers who leave the field. What's changed is the nature of the work itself. Today's transcriptionists spend more time reviewing and correcting AI-generated drafts than typing from scratch, which means the skills that keep someone employed here look very different than they did a decade ago.
The median annual wage sits at $37,550, and workers who specialize in complex fields like radiology or pathology, where accuracy still matters enormously, tend to have better job security than generalists doing routine dictation that speech software already handles well.
Legal secretaries
Legal software can now generate, format, and file a lot of the paperwork that a dedicated secretary once prepared by hand, and paralegals are increasingly the ones running that software instead.
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants are projected to see employment decline 5.8 percent from 2024 to 2034. Legal technology now lets paralegals and legal assistants handle tasks, like preparing filings and managing case documents, that used to require a dedicated legal secretary, and firms have consolidated those roles to cut costs.
Medical secretaries are actually growing as healthcare expands, and general secretarial work isn't shrinking as fast. But legal secretaries specifically face a sharper decline than most other administrative roles, because the technology built for law firms keeps eating into the tasks that used to justify a dedicated position.
The occupation currently employs about 156,300 people, a figure projected to drop to roughly 147,300 by 2034, a loss of about 9,000 jobs. It's a smaller decline in raw numbers than some other roles on this list, but it stands out because most secretarial and administrative work overall is holding roughly steady, not falling.
Broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys
That friendly voice on your local radio station might get replaced by an AI-generated one that never calls in sick or asks for a raise.
Employment of broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys is projected to decline 5.5 percent from 2024 to 2034. Radio and TV station ownership has been consolidating into fewer, larger companies for years, and each merger tends to mean one on-air staffer covering shifts that used to belong to several different local announcers. AI-generated voice technology is now adding a new layer of pressure on top of that, making it cheaper for stations to automate parts of their programming altogether.
Live, local radio personalities still matter to a lot of listeners, especially for morning shows and community events where personality and local knowledge count for something. But as station ownership keeps consolidating and AI voice tools keep improving, fewer stations will need a full roster of human announcers to fill the airtime.
The median hourly wage for broadcast announcers was $21.96 as of 2024, and about 3,800 openings a year are projected across the broader announcer and DJ category, mostly from people leaving for other work. It's not a career disappearing overnight, but the on-air roles that once anchored small and mid-size markets keep getting harder to find.
Office machine operators, except computer
Fax machines, addressing machines, mail-processing equipment, most offices don't run this hardware anymore, and the job that meant operating it barely exists either.
Office machine operators, except computer, are projected to decline 15.2 percent from 2024 to 2034. This occupation covers workers whose entire job was running that kind of specialized equipment, hardware that has largely been replaced by digital workflows and general-purpose computers.
It's one of the clearest examples of an entire category of equipment, and the jobs built around it, becoming obsolete. As offices keep digitizing everything from mail processing to document handling, the specialized machines that once required a dedicated operator keep disappearing, and so do the jobs that came with them.
Employment here is projected to drop from about 25,500 jobs in 2024 to roughly 21,600 by 2034. It's a small, largely invisible occupation to most people, which makes sense. The whole point of these machines was to run quietly in the background of an office, and now even that background role is disappearing.
Bottom line before you plan your next career move
None of these jobs are disappearing overnight, and most still offer years of steady work for the people doing them right now. But if you're choosing a career path today, these numbers are worth knowing before you commit years to a job that's already shrinking.
