Refers to workers whose paths to career mobility are narrowing because artificial intelligence (AI) threatens not only their current jobs but also the jobs they would be most likely to move into next. Rather than having a clear pathway from an AI-exposed occupation into a less vulnerable one, trapped workers may find that nearby or realistic employment options are being disrupted by the same technological changes.

The term was introduced in 2026 by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in research examining worker mobility in the AI economy. BPC defines trapped workers as those whose vulnerability is compounded because AI threatens both their current role and their most realistic next job. Its analysis examined 595,000 actual worker transitions from 2019–2026 and found that workers tend to move within clusters of related occupations rather than simply shifting to any job requiring similar skills.

The concept shifts attention from whether a particular job is exposed to AI to whether workers have viable pathways out of exposed jobs. It therefore has implications for career navigation, education and training, reskilling, and workforce policy aimed at creating pathways into occupations with lower AI exposure.