AI and the Full Monty effect on white-collar jobs: David Richards

The trading floor is empty. Screens are dark. The work has not moved to New York or Singapore. It has not been outsourced. It has simply dissolved into software.

In the corner, two former bankers in scuffed Loakes are trying to wrench a server from its rack, hoping to strip copper from the very machines that replaced them.

It sounds far-fetched. Until you remember we have seen this story before.

The original Full Monty was not about abstract economic forces. It was about Sheffield steelworkers who lost the thing that gave them identity, pride and purpose. When the work went, it did not just take wages. It took status, structure and meaning.

For a generation, that kind of shock was understood as a working-class problem. Something that happened to people who worked with their hands. White-collar professionals assumed they were insulated. Degrees, offices and credentials were meant to protect them.

That assumption is now breaking down. Because this is no longer theoretical.

In the first 11 weeks of 2026, major technology companies have announced or are developing cuts totalling approximately 45,724 roles, according to tracker-based estimates.

The unverified and developing nature of these figures suggests the real number may already be higher. And that is before the second-order effects.

Behind the headlines, something more important is happening. Roles are not being replaced.

Teams are not being rebuilt. The first rung of the ladder is quietly being removed.

Anthropic, one of the world’s leading AI laboratories, now shows why. Its data, drawn from millions of real workplace interactions, makes one thing clear. AI is not starting at the bottom of the labour market. It is starting in the middle. Software, finance, business operations and law dominate usage.

More importantly, the gains increase with complexity. The more educated and valuable the task, the more it can be accelerated.

But the real shift is not speed. It is what happens to the job itself. We have seen it before. Deskilling.

When AI takes over drafting, analysis, coding or planning, what remains for the human is the lower-value residue. Coordination. Oversight. Exception handling. The job does not vanish overnight, but its intellectual core begins to erode.

The steel industry followed exactly this path. Technology did not simply replace workers. It redefined the work, broke skilled roles into simpler tasks, and reduced the economic value of labour over time.

That same dynamic is now moving through the office. The clearest signal is not layoffs. It is hiring. Firms are no longer creating the entry-level roles that once trained the next generation. The ladder is not being climbed. It is being removed.

And when you remove the first rung, you do not just lose jobs. You break the system that produces experience, judgment and expertise.

We know how this story plays out when it is ignored.

When deindustrialisation swept through cities like Sheffield, the people most affected did not have the influence to force a rapid response. The adjustment came late, and often in the form of retraining programmes that never quite matched the scale of the problem.

It is tempting to believe this time will be different. That a disruption aimed at graduates and professionals will produce a faster, more serious response. Perhaps.

Or perhaps the professional class will behave exactly as every group does when it comes under pressure. It will insist its work is different. Its skills are irreplaceable.

Right up to the point where it is not.

David Richards MBE is managing partner of Yorkshire AI Labs