One out of every ten US workers – about 17 million, all told they will likely be forced to leave their jobs and take up new occupations by 2030, according to the consultant firm McKinsey & Co report.

The report said that Covid-19’s after-effects will destroy huge swathes of low-paying positions in a labor market that was primed for disruption before the pandemic.

Women, minorities, the young and the less educated will probably be the hardest hit by what consultant firm McKinsey & Co. foresees in a new report as an unprecedented hallowing out of low-wage work in retail, hospitality and other industries.

“Covid is a big disruptor,” Susan Lund, a Washington-based partner at McKinsey Global Institute, the consultant’s research arm, said in an interview.

The 17 million Americans are part of the more than 100 million people worldwide that the institute forecast will need to leave their jobs and enter new lines of work by the end of the decade. That will amount to about one in 16 workers in the eight leading economies covered by the study, which includes China, Japan, Germany and the UK, as well as the US.

“The forces Covid-19 unleashed mean there could be a lot less demand for front line workers in food service, retail, hospitality, entertainment,” Lund said.

That prompted McKinsey to lift its pre-pandemic estimate of how many workers will need to change occupations by 28 percent, or 3.8 million, to 17 million.