White-collar workers are quitting their jobs out of fear of AI

White-collar workers in the US are leaving their jobs because they expect AI to take them, even though the data shows no wave of AI layoffs, the Guardian reported on 6 November. Software engineers, a PR specialist, an editor and an advertising producer told the paper that AI had changed their work or made it feel insecure, and they left before anyone fired them.

The numbers behind AI job fears

So far the data does not back AI job fears. AI has created about 1 million US jobs, against 200,000 layoffs attributed to it, according to The Economist. Yet 71% of Americans expect AI to leave fewer jobs over the next 20 years, the Pew Research Center found.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted in May 2025 that AI would displace half of all entry-level white-collar jobs by the end of the decade. This year he called AI a “general labor substitute for humans” in an essay. Brendan Moore, an economics professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies worker sentiment, said such warnings and AI-linked layoff announcements drive the fear, though some of those companies would likely have cut staff anyway.

Five people who left

AI researcher Mrinank Sharma left Anthropic earlier this year with a resignation letter on X that warned of a world “in peril” and drew 15.3 million views. He went on to study poetry.

Vanessa Hsia, 30, left public relations after nearly ten years to study comparative literature. She said tasks such as pitching reporters by email were already automated. “I’ve been sold this dream that if I work really hard in my career, I’ll climb the ladder,” she told the Guardian.

Hanna Horvath, 29, quit her editing job at Bankrate after the company mandated AI use. She now freelances, works as a financial planner and writes a Substack newsletter. “AI doesn’t have to replace your job to fundamentally change your relationship to your job,” she said.

A software engineer who asked to be called Chris joined the police in a major East Coast city because AI had taken “a lot of the thinking” out of coding. Kara, a former advertising producer, now acts and works as a barista. Her employer pushed tools such as Runway and ElevenLabs while warning the team about their legal risks. An engineer still at a large tech company said: “The career that I’ve had for 10 years is kind of fundamentally gone.”

Fear alone can move the economy

Moore pointed to the great resignation of the Covid-19 pandemic, when mass quitting pushed up wages and consumer prices. “Just the fear of job loss alone, even if mass job loss never comes, can affect the economy,” he said.

Lawmakers have noticed. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill this year for a federal moratorium on new AI data centers until workers facing job loss get protections. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in August that he did not understand why anyone who believes AI will eliminate most jobs “would rush to build that future.” University of Sydney staff went on strike over AI job security in September, and in the UK the share of computer science graduates going into coding jobs fell to 28%.

What it means for you

If an AI agent or a chatbot already does part of your daily work, the people in the Guardian’s report show two routes. Some left their field. Horvath split her income across several sources, so no single employer or tool decides her future. Before you quit, look at the numbers for your own role: across the US economy, AI has so far added more jobs than it has cut, by The Economist’s count.

Based on the Guardian’s report by Amelia Penniman of 6 November 2026. Quotes from the people named come from that report.