External signal·Fortune·Apr 28, 2026·Jake Angelo·7 min read
A 160-year-old paradox explains why AI will create more lawyers and accountants—not fewer, top economist says
“When steam engines made coal more efficient, Britain didn't burn less coal, it burned more.”
Summary
Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok argues the Jevons paradox will play out in labor markets: as AI cuts the cost of professional work, demand for legal, accounting, consulting and financial services will expand and total employment in those fields will grow rather than shrink. Slok points to falling youth unemployment (20-24-year-olds dropped from 9.2% in September to 5.6% in March) and record new-business formation, and a December 2025 Vanguard report found the roughly 100 occupations most exposed to AI outperformed the rest of the labor market on job and wage growth. Fortune's analysis pushes back, noting ATMs and accounting software grew their industries while gutting entry-level roles, and that recent-grad underemployment hit 42.5% in Q4 2025. A Dallas Fed/Stanford finding shows workers aged 22-25 in the most AI-exposed jobs saw a 13% employment decline since 2022.
Predictions for the future of work
Slok predicts AI will be net job-creating for white-collar professions—law, accounting, consulting, finance—as cheaper output unlocks latent demand, echoed by Salesforce (hiring 1,000 new grads) and IBM (tripling entry-level hiring). Fortune counters that the likelier near-to-medium-term outcome is industry growth alongside a hollowed-out entry level: more lawyers but fewer associates, more analysis but fewer junior analysts, with displacement concentrated on young and lower-skilled workers even as aggregate numbers look healthy.
Originally published by Fortune · Apr 28, 2026
Read the original at Fortune