AI Workforce Transition
The city that builds the technology should prepare workers for it.
Software developers are among the five most vulnerable occupations in San Francisco. 68,500 developers live in the city, making a median salary of $167,510. GitHub Copilot already writes 40% of code at some companies. Junior developers face the steepest risk, which means the entry rung of one of San Francisco’s largest career ladders is breaking. District 8 has roughly 12,000 tech workers, with $591 million in annual wages and a local spending footprint that supports every café and small business in our business corridors.
The displacement pressure isn’t limited to tech. My analysis of 34 major occupations covering 542,000 SF workers found 12 occupations, totaling almost 205,000 workers, will face medium-term disruption within three to seven years. This includes administrative staff, paralegals, customer service reps, and office clerks. There’s also a consistent pattern where occupations with higher minority representation score higher on vulnerability. Despite this, no U.S. city has a comprehensive workforce transition program built for AI displacement. San Jose is training 15% of city staff, and NYC has bias audits, but nobody has a plan for the actual jobs that are about to change.
I’m sharing this because I think we have a real opportunity here. San Francisco is where half of this technology is being built. You can’t even walk five blocks without passing an autonomous vehicle. The city that builds the technology should also be the city that shows everyone else how to prepare workers for it.
I’m building my AI workforce transition position around what the data actually shows: who’s at risk, when, and what it would cost to get ahead of it rather than react after the fact. Training 500 workers costs $5.4 million a year and returns 12% over three years — roughly a third of what the city spends when those same workers end up on long-term unemployment. If the entry rung of the tech career ladder breaks, the senior engineers and founders we need in ten years don’t get built. That pipeline matters too.
The report is almost ready. In the meantime, if you know something I should know, tell me. I personally read every submission.
Prefer to talk about this in person? I hold regular office hours and am also happy to meet one-on-one.