One in four white-collar workers faces a mid-career bottleneck: AI accelerates rewriting career rules

Burning Glass Institute and New York University tracking 1.3 million professionals, a study spanning over 20 years, found that about a quarter of American white-collar workers hit a career wall before reaching their income peak, with no substantial pay raises or promotions for more than five consecutive years.
(Background: AI panic unemployment! Microsoft executives warn: most white-collar workers will be automated out within the next 12-18 months)
(Additional context: Google Translate’s strongest competitor DeepL layoffs 25%! CEO: transforming into an “AI-native” company, human employees will only do creative work in the future)

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• 1.3 million people, 20 years, an uncomfortable number
• Why are they stuck, and how can they save themselves?
• What has AI accelerated?

Job security is an illusion. 28-year-old Sidi Traore says this, not with a tone of cynicism, but as a statement of fact. He has obtained a real estate license, shows houses on weekends, and is opening a second path for himself. Not out of passion, but because he sees clearly that the main road he thought was stable was never as wide as he imagined.

A Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis report in April pointed out that today’s workers have about half the chance of receiving higher-paying offers from external companies compared to the 1980s, partly because employer concentration has increased in many regions, reducing available options for new employers.

And as AI begins rewriting the fundamental logic of white-collar work, this trap is becoming deeper and harder to escape.

1.3 million people, 20 years, an uncomfortable number

The Wall Street Journal reports that this study was conducted by Burning Glass Institute in collaboration with NYU’s School of Professional Studies, tracking 1.3 million mid-career professionals across multiple industries, with data accumulated over more than 20 years starting from 2000.

The study found that about a quarter of American white-collar professionals hit a career wall before reaching their income peak: at least five years without substantial pay raises or promotions. Burning Glass Institute President Matt Sigelman pointed out: when you’re talking about a quarter of the workforce, this is not a small issue.

The proportion of stagnation varies significantly across industries. According to Burning Glass’s analysis, public administration leads at 30.2%, followed by real estate and leasing (28.9%), utilities (28.0%), manufacturing (27.0%); relatively lower are healthcare and social assistance (21.8%) and information technology (20.7%).

Even during the years of pandemic hiring surges, mid-career stagnation persisted. Now, giants like Amazon, Meta, UPS have laid off thousands of managers and mid-level employees, leaving even less room for promotions and job hopping.

NYU School of Professional Studies Dean Angie Kamath said that stagnation has become a new normal for many, and individuals should anticipate this and proactively find ways to prevent it.

Why are people stuck, and how can they save themselves?

Research shows that mid-career stagnation often roots in “early career downturns,” which ripple through the entire income trajectory. In other words, stagnation doesn’t start in middle age; it’s the result of early accumulation issues manifesting later.

The solution isn’t to switch careers from scratch but to acquire several “strategic skills” to transition into adjacent fields. Kamath describes “adjacent switching” simply as moving into a neighboring field where most existing skills can be reused but with better growth prospects.

For example, an office manager could transition into “business operations”; a stagnating programmer could become a “data scientist,” with most skills directly transferable.

The study also highlights skills that help reduce the risk of stagnation: public speaking, time management, relationship building (including event planning and community management).

Further education certifications show a dual effect. Burning Glass’s analysis indicates that in fields like computer and IT support (reducing stagnation risk by 17%), health-related fields (−37%), and education (−46%), certifications effectively prevent stagnation; but in public administration (+79%), engineering (+67%), obtaining more certifications correlates with higher stagnation rates. In other words, “more certifications” is not a cure-all; choosing the right field is key.

What has AI accelerated?

This NYU study mainly focuses on the structural causes of career stagnation. The only direct link to technological change is Kamath’s mention that acquiring certifications helps workers adapt to new industry technologies and organizational structures, facilitating adjacent transitions.

But what I see is: if we place this study in the context of AI rewriting the rules of white-collar work, the meaning of stagnation changes entirely.

The core issue is speed: AI compresses what would normally take 5-7 years of career shifts, leaving workforce training systems, community colleges, and corporate training budgets far behind the pace of obsolescence. This is the real reason why the stagnation phenomenon revealed by NYU research is so concerning in the AI era.

One-quarter of white-collar workers are stuck before reaching their income peak, and this number was already high before AI started rewriting the game. The next few years are likely to see this accelerate.