Americans used to flock to Phoenix, Arizona, because of the large numbers of back-office jobs on offer as manufacturing declined nationwide. Now workers are losing those jobs thanks to AI and offshoring.

Thousands of white-collar workers in customer service, data entry, and payroll processing say they are now out of a job as companies outsource their roles.

Customer service representative jobs in the metro Phoenix area have dropped 26 percent in the past four years, according to the Labor Department.

Customer service representative jobs nationwide will decline by 5 percent by 2034, official figures show.

Vonda Wilkins, a 49-year-old Phoenix-based customer service representative, told The Wall Street Journal, 'I'm concerned that a lot of call-center workers will not have jobs pretty soon, me included.'

Wilkins said that when she worked for Lumen Technologies, many of her co-workers were laid off last year as the company shifted to relying on AI to engage with customers.

Even at her current job with AT&T, Wilkins said customers are forced to deal with AI before finally speaking with a representative, and are often frustrated and angry by the time they interact with a human.

Geoff McGehee, 54, told the outlet he was laid off from his job as a senior customer-relationship manager at Sears Home Services in October.

However, McGehee said that before he lost his job, he helped integrate AI to replace human customer service workers at the company.

'I was literally digging my own grave,' he said.

He said he has applied for hundreds of back office jobs, but hasn't been able to find new work and is now considering training to become an electrician.

Rebecca Savage, 46, told the newspaper she began struggling to find phone-based work last year and is considering a job at a semiconductor factory.

'There were a lot of things that the phone system could do to basically replace us,' Savage said.

Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the think tank Brookings Metro, said that call center jobs once helped workers climb the corporate ladder.

Now, he said, 'The pathways that provide mobility disintegrate, and you lose the American promise of opportunity.'

When looked at across all sectors, job figures show a less bleak picture. The unemployment rate fell in January and February of this year and dropped again to 4percent in March.