Americans once flocked to Phoenix, Arizona, attracted by a wealth of back-office jobs as manufacturing declined nationwide. Now, those same workers are losing their positions to artificial intelligence and offshoring. Thousands of white-collar employees in customer service, data entry, and payroll processing have been laid off as companies move these roles overseas or automate them.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, customer service representative jobs in the Phoenix metropolitan area have plummeted by 26 percent over the past four years. Nationally, these roles are projected to decline by 5 percent by 2034.
Vonda Wilkins, a 49-year-old customer service representative based in Phoenix, expressed her fears to The Wall Street Journal: 'I'm concerned that a lot of call-center workers will not have jobs pretty soon, me included.' Wilkins noted that while working at Lumen Technologies, many of her colleagues were laid off last year as the company increasingly relied on AI to interact with customers. Even at her current job with AT&T, customers must navigate AI systems before speaking with a human, often arriving frustrated and angry.
Geoff McGehee, 54, shared his experience of being laid off from his senior customer-relationship manager role at Sears Home Services in October. Before losing his job, McGehee had helped integrate AI to replace human customer service workers. 'I was literally digging my own grave,' he said. Despite applying for hundreds of back-office positions, he has been unable to find new work and is now considering training as an electrician.
Rebecca Savage, 46, told the newspaper that she began struggling to find phone-based work last year and is now contemplating a job at a semiconductor factory. 'There were a lot of things that the phone system could do to basically replace us,' she remarked.
Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the think tank Brookings Metro, noted that call center jobs once provided a pathway for career advancement. 'The pathways that provide mobility disintegrate, and you lose the American promise of opportunity,' he said.
However, across all sectors, the job market appears less dire. The unemployment rate fell in January and February of this year and dropped again to 4 percent in March.
