Aibu for being increasingly worried about the job market?

[gymboe]

another threat of redundancy here. Business not going well and to be honest we are full steam ahead with AI.

a quick search in my large town in south of England:

• 5 x nhs jobs (4 of which I am not qualified for and one is really terrible pay as just three days per week)
• school jobs: just three and very low pay
• our high street is mostly made of charity shops and vape stores. Retail doesn’t offer what I want.
• a big employer now hardly owns any office space. There are just a few jobs. I’m not qualified.

I do have a degree but found myself in a specialised account/client mgmt type role. Pays around £50k.

10 years ago there were loads of these type of jobs, decent salary even if you had to start low, good career progression, hundreds of them and tonnes of temp agencies. And the nhs had loads of admin jobs. Not to mention school jobs being plentiful.

where the hell have they all gone?

this is a huge issue. Massive. I’m really worried.

I can’t say that I know much about your job, but I assume that it’s easier than that of a labourer (not back breaking, outside work and heavy lifting in all weathers). Is there any reason why your skills should trump hard physical labour?

That's really nice that you are giving them a genuinely nice home to live in, I remember sleeping in clothes and a big winter coat and the snow that got dragged in the house didn't even melt. I was bloody glad to get back home. To be honest the ex liked that sort of remote life and I didn't, I'm a towny so that made it feel even worse for me.

And this is the crux of the problem, people in the UK are so content with such low standards and think anybody with higher standards is the problem. 30k is low for a high skilled job and people with those skills should be paid more bc they have those skills. Anybody can lift bricks, not everyone can write an algorithm.

Are you being serious? Do you have any idea of the liability and knowledge a health and safety professional has to have and take on! Who keeps everyone on a construction site safe? Think about all the construction phase plans, risk assessments, site traffic and pedestrian management plans, environmental management plans, safe system of work documentation, audits, site inductions, safety training...have a guess who has to take responsibility for writing and collating all of that! A hospital surgeon isn't back breaking work but it's a lot of skill, qualifications and liability!

Thank you, I have to put my arse on the line everyday to do what I do, if it goes wrong, it can go really wrong!

I agree that 30k is low for a skilled job, but I don’t agree that ‘anybody can lift bricks’. It requires a certain level of physical health, strength and fitness. A lot of people wouldn’t be physically capable. Arguably, anyone can train to be a health and safety professional. According to Google, you don’t even need a degree, you can just do an apprenticeship and get a certificate.

Hence the need to prevent mass unemployment.

It is pissing in the wind to believe that mass loss of paid employment can be stopped.

Any country that tries that will put themself at such an enormous disadvantage that there will be mass loss of employment anyway.

I'm not sure I see why people would be against a UBI sufficient to live on, with anyone wanting more to get out there with a business idea that can't be done by machines.

I absolutely can't get my head around people being made to do jobs that can be done cheaper and better by machines just for the sake of them having a job.

Don't get me wrong, the interim while it all sorts itself out and we either ramp up taxes on companies that use AI and robotics or make them pay people directly for doing very few hours, or none, will be bloody.

But companies must have people who they can sell their goods and services to, or they die. And we certainly can't return to a homespun and agrarian system worldwide with 8 billion people, so there's no other conceivable option.

But jobs aren’t paid according to the level of qualification. If they were, then people like academics, with PhDs, would be paid far more. They are more likely to be paid according to the competition, and how many people want the job. That’s why jobs that lots of people want to do (e.g. creative, media, academia etc) are often not well paid in comparison to boring, less desirable jobs (e.g. accounting). I doubt that your job is as specialised and skilled as a surgeon!

We have an over qualification crisis in the UK, so degrees and qualifications are worth very little.

Lol No we have not, approx 36% of students go on to get a degree, we ve a lack of people with qualifications & a private/public sector that has held down wages for far too long.
Look at what an academic can earn in other countries, we just like to pay people as little as possible unless its a CEO ...

As for comparing a Labourer with a HCP, well you've clearly not done either.

Is there something wrong with you? Why are you being massively insulting to my profession! You don't become a health and safety professional from an apprenticeship! Get on Google and search health and safety vacancies and see what level of experience and qualifications people are asking for! I have Nebosh General Certificate, Nebosh HSE certificate in Process Safety, I'm an Associate of the Institute of Environmental Management, I have ISO 45001 lead auditor qualifications and they tend to want all that and more, many like people to be Chartered Members of the Institute of Safety & Health! They don't want adolescents who've done a few years apprenticeship and have a bit of paper to say they've passed the course!

My partner is a Senior IT Network Engineer for the NHS, he's had to take endless training courses and professional qualifications over the course of 30+ years to do his job and stay at the top of his game! It takes years for us professionals to learn our trade trade and you think a kid can do it with a bit of a apprenticeship and a slip of paper to say they've passed! Where are these apprenticeships that turn into a highly skilled and qualified professional overnight?

And as an FYI there is competition in my field, just because you weirdly don't understand what health and safety is and why it's a job that requires taking on a lot of liability, there's an issue certainly in the region I live in where there's so much industry being lost and so many h&s professionals being made redundant that companies can get away with advertising a H&S administration position whilst wanting the post holder to have the experience of an H&S manager! We live in a litigious society, my profession is critical to every business despite you downplaying us as having jobs so easy a kid out of school could do it with a bit of an apprenticeship.

Just vote Reform! They'll get rid of all that 'elf and safety rubbish altogether!

@theyrenotfeedingtheadults "I’ve never seen a legitimate role that lets you just move abroad and keep working remotely." Friend's daughter who had very senior role in the public sector was permitted to move to a Scandinavian country and work remotely. The role had no international aspect to it. It went on for a few years and that surprised me.

Yep because there's not enough workplace accidents and fatalities really is there, employers should be allowed to hurt people more and fuck up your lungs and all that. Working hours need to be longer too, fuck all that fatigue risk shite.

Sorry I was being sarcastic but when I read it back realised I sounded serious!

I think that sounds like a horrible dystopia. A recipe for depression for one thing. And when its possible to live without having a job, I think a lot of people who grow up with that will grow up unmotivated, people will turn to things like drugs and video games. No one will want to do even the necessary work.

Plus the government, and ultimately the companies paying taxes, withhold all the power around deciding who gets what and under what conditions.

It seems to me, with climate change, pollution and finite resources, it would actually be very convenient if most humans were killed off by impoverishing them, starving them and persuading them to kill each other in global warfare, leaving behind a small number of vile megalomaniacs and their AI.

I live in a country which lots of young Brits come to and do agricultural work. Why won't they do it there?

Are they doing it for life or just for a few months or years? I'm guessing it's maybe something of a gap year experience for wealthier kids who'll go on to do something better paid eventually. Here it's less of an adventure. Can you say which country? Somewhere hotter, colder or about the same?

I sort of thought you were being sarcastic so I joined in - trouble nowadays is there are a lot of people who do still demonise H&S people and still think we're the killjoys with clipboards.

Im guessing you are Canada, US, Australia or NZ.

There’s quite a lot of people prepared to drive big fancy tractors and a harvest abroad is a good way to do that. Some of those come back and work on arable farms, lots will go on to be grain traders, engineers etc.

Not so many prepared to work in dairy farming for example. Far less shiny tractors!

The problem is that it's not a good paying and stable job in the UK, a lot of farms are struggling and many had to shut up shop altogether because of the loss of the EU subsidies. It tends to mainly be seasonal work which isn't great if you need to pay for a roof over your head and bills. Our weather these days makes it worryingly more difficult to grow anything as we alternate between many months of drought and many months of excessive rainfall.

I did land work as a teenager in the 90s as did my partner and it was only low paid, seasonal work then. You dropped off at a field in the back of beyond and left there working all-day, no welfare facilities whatsoever, you had nothing, couldn't even wash your hands to eat your packed lunch. Nowadays it would be lot harder for farmers to get away with that and more people wouldn't stand for it. I think the EU workforce used to put up with it and going home to house shares because the wages were a good nest egg compared to where they came from in Eastern Europe.

Don't despair. I have a relative who was made redundant in the same field. She took a full time temporary job for a year; not quite the same, and has finally, after 2 months with no work, has found a job in a different sector but doing similar accountancy to her original job.

I think your fears are valid but that a lot of people could find it totally liberating. Parents getting to spend proper time with their children. People being artistic in many ways that don't necessarily generate money. People getting together to do stuff for their community. I think there will be a core of people who are very keen to do the necessary work, which will obviously have to pay more than UBI, for the money and/or the structure.

We can already see that the medical advances will be stupendous. Paralysed people will walk, blind people will see, diseases will be caught long before people get ill with them.

I have high hopes for the far future but great fears for nearer future and I'm glad I'm not young and needing to earn a living.

Human nature doesn't change, boredom leads to a lot of issues.

But the main one is "where does the money come from to pay people who aren't being productive?"
Tesco made 2.5bn in profit last year, paid out 6bn in wages BUT many of their staff require in work benefits to live.
Are suggesting they pay, on top of the tax they already pay, another 6bn?

Plus how do you decide how much to give each person? we aren't all the same, would a company CEO, made redundant due to AI, be happy on £37k ? though someone who can barely string 2 sentences together might be very pleased with 37k.

No, it would be an utter disaster and i don't believe it would lead to the advances you claim, AI cannot even get basic facts correct and is only as good as the information it can harvest from either AI or human input.

You'd also get a great deal of anger (in both directions) from people swanning about enjoying themselves (or not) doing nothing but getting well paid vs people whose job roles cannot be replaced by AI.