Phoenix Built an Empire of Cubicle Jobs. AI Is Coming to Tear It Down.
The metropolis became America’s call-center capital—for now. Artificial intelligence, layered atop decades of offshoring, is dismantling the white-collar jobs that once served as a reliable ladder to the middle class.
Across this desert city’s vast metro area, low-rise office parks with mirrored windows and sprawling parking lots stretch to the horizon. This is America’s back office.
Abundant land and lower costs once made Phoenix a magnet for companies seeking to house customer-service representatives, data-entry clerks, payroll processors, and other administrative workers far from headquarters. These cubicle jobs helped replace factory work lost to globalization and offered millions of Americans without college degrees a pathway into the middle class.
Now those jobs are disappearing. Offshoring continues its long erosion, while artificial intelligence is accelerating the decline. Tens of thousands of local workers face an uncertain future.
A test grader saw her role outsourced to India. A customer-relations manager, recently laid off, is pivoting to bartending. Staffing firms that once supplied back-office talent are cutting their own headcount amid falling demand. Those still employed watch automation reshape their daily work with growing unease.
“I’m concerned that a lot of call-center workers will not have jobs pretty soon, me included,” said Vonda Wilkins, a Phoenix-based customer-service representative.
Many of her colleagues at Lumen Technologies lost their positions last year as the company leaned more heavily on AI, and landline usage continued to decline. The technology has also made her job harder: callers who finally reach a human are often already frustrated from dealing with bots. The 49-year-old is now planning to attend nursing school.
A fading ladder
Offshoring has undercut back-office roles for decades, yet roughly 16.5 million Americans still work in office and administrative support—more than in manufacturing, though down from nearly 18 million in late 2019. In metro Phoenix, the number of customer-service representatives has dropped 26% over the most recent four-year period tracked by the Labor Department.
Further losses are coming. The department projects a 4% decline in office and administrative support jobs over the next eight years—the sharpest drop among major employment categories.
The implications for working-class Americans are significant. Fifty years ago, factory jobs provided middle-class stability for those without degrees. As manufacturing employment fell 26% between 2000 and 2019, full-time customer-service roles grew 32%. These positions were relatively easy to obtain, required minimal training, paid better than retail or food service, and offered opportunities for advancement.
Call-center work placed people inside corporate environments, where they developed soft skills—problem-solving, communication, and handling difficult conversations—that helped many climb into higher-paying roles like sales.
Now, those entry-level footholds are vanishing. “The pathways that provide mobility disintegrate,” warned Mark Muro, senior fellow at Brookings Metro, “and you lose the American promise of opportunity.”
Geoff McGehee, 54, was laid off in October from his senior customer-relationship manager role at Sears Home Services. He had helped integrate AI into the company’s customer-service operations. “I was literally digging my own grave,” he said.
After hundreds of unsuccessful applications for similar work, McGehee is expanding his search. He recently completed a bartending course and is considering electrician training—work he views as more resistant to automation. “At least I can rewire my house,” he quipped.
Desert cubicles
Phoenix’s back-office boom began in the 1960s when American Express opened a regional office here. Advances in telecommunications and computing allowed support functions to move away from expensive coastal headquarters to cheaper Sun Belt cities.
By the 1980s, local newspapers were filled with ads for claims adjusters, customer-service supervisors, and auditors. Even as Motorola and semiconductor manufacturers shed jobs, the back-office sector more than compensated. Between 1999 and 2019, the area lost over 34,000 manufacturing jobs but saw customer-service employment triple.
Just before the pandemic, metro Phoenix reached a milestone: it had more customer-service representatives than manufacturing workers.
For many, these jobs served as launchpads. Mary Foote started at a Vanguard call center in 2006 after graduating from Arizona State University. The experience taught her communication skills, and the company funded her financial licenses. She moved into sales at Morgan Stanley and later earned a master’s degree. She now directs Arizona’s Office of Economic Opportunity.
Vonda Wilkins began her call-center career with American Express in 1996. The work offered better pay and benefits than fast food, healthcare coverage, and a sense of stability. Over three decades, it allowed her to support her family comfortably.
The downturn
Phoenix’s customer-service workforce peaked at nearly 93,000 in 2021 amid pandemic-driven online demand. By 2025, it had fallen to about 69,000, with signs of further decline in job postings.
Companies have largely avoided mass layoffs, instead relying on high industry turnover and simply not replacing departing workers.
Jeff Seifert’s staffing firm, Professional Placement/Pro-Tem Service, has seen demand collapse. His own staff has shrunk from around a dozen to five. He is now exploring skilled trades—welding, plumbing, construction—fields he considers more automation-resistant.
Tech transformation and transition
Phoenix is pivoting. Data-center construction is surging, and major semiconductor investments from Intel and TSMC are reshaping the economy. Vacated call centers are being demolished for industrial parks and tech facilities.
Yet the transition is uneven. New manufacturing jobs often require specialized skills that former customer-service workers lack, and many are being filled by out-of-state graduates or foreign talent. Entry-level healthcare roles, such as home-health aides, are more accessible but physically demanding and often lower-paying.
Local institutions are responding with new training programs in AI, semiconductors, and skilled trades. The state is supporting apprenticeships.
Rebecca Savage, 46, who spent years in headset jobs, hopes to eventually land a semiconductor factory position. She is pursuing IT training through a local nonprofit. “You have to wear a bodysuit, but I think I can do that,” she said of cleanroom work.
Others face continued offshoring. Since 2019, multinational companies have expanded their overseas workforce by 36%, outpacing domestic growth. Roles like test grading, accounting, and customer service have moved abroad—particularly to the Philippines and India.
Tina Bigalk’s part-time English test grading work vanished in early 2025 when it was outsourced to India. She now sells homemade wreaths at farmers’ markets while urging her teenage son to pursue more future-proof careers.
An evolving economy
Phoenix’s economic development strategy has shifted from attracting call centers to advanced manufacturing and technology. As Foote noted, “The economy has evolved.”
For thousands of workers, the challenge is evolving with it, before the cubicle empire that once defined the city fades further into the past.