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.

This is not the time for the employment rights bill. It will make people even less likely to recruit.

And especially less likely to recruit anyone that might be a risk. Where I work we have historically given people a chance knowing that we can let them go if it doesn't work out. These are people with no work history, long career breaks, spent criminal records, but we won't be able to do that anymore.

It will stop us growing.

I think you are thinking too short term. You are trying to imagine compensating people for redundancy and running society in it's current form. It won't work like that.

Tesco will need people to be paid so they can sell their stuff. If they are saving 5bn by using robots and AI, then it almost goes without saying that they will have no business left if they don't pay people not to work, so that those people continue to eat their food.

[The monetary value of their profit is irrelevant, by the way. They are an absolutely enormous business. You would probably have no problem with 1000 businesses each making a profit of £2.5m . Their profit margins are actually very tight, about 4%, they'd make more money if they took all their money out of the business and stuck it in a savings account. But that's a whole other thread. ]

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.

AI is currently a new born baby. AI is beginning to learn by experience just as humans do, and AI is beginning to develop AI, at which point the whole thing goes ballistic. A system was launched last week that does 10,000 customer service calls simultaneously 24 hours a day with a licence fee of a tiny fraction of what it costs to employ one person. Paralysed humans, thanks to Elon Musk, are operating mechanical hands via a brain implanted chip. And we are only at the very beginning.

True thats why I doubted myself. Its hard online!

I agree sadly. I was all for it before the election but it will only accelerate AI uptake. Theres no point having employment rights if you havent got employment. We need employers to take risks on young people, on people who have disbilities or have been on long term sick and provide them with time, training and reasonable adjustments. They just wont do that. Especially in traditional first/ disability employer roles like retail and hospitality, where profit margins are extremely tight. I am very disappointed in Labour backbench MP's who seem determined not to see this and be pragmatic.

I'm getting pretty sick of hearing Reeves say they've given people a pay rise. She doesn't seem to understand that people will only get that minimum wage pay rise if they've actually got a job, and she's made that much less likely by whacking MW for the young up by 23% in the space of 53 weeks.

Not just the backbench. But agree hitting business is the last thing we need given the requirement for more jobs.

You mean like UK employers have been?

Do you think employers are charities? they actually take people on because they think it will make them money, not out of some weird idea it will help the employee.

They will get rid of workers wherever they can, with or without AI.

Germany, with far greater employment protections than the UK is planning to introduce, has unemployment rates well below the UK, with its gig economy, ZHC, exploitive, cash in hand set up.

Germany also provide far better training for its youth and women are better protected.

There are over 450k more people in work now than 12 months ago.

Corporate profits are at all time highs & higher min wage, means employees will get less in-work benefits.
Meanwhile lets look at CEO pay increases....

Inflation was at over 11%, with food inflation at 30%, is still 50% higher than pre Ukraine, why should those at the bottom always pay the price and be further exploited?

Unemployment, even with MW and NI increases, is still at historically low levels (for the UK) going from 4.4% to 5%, much of which is down to AI, according to most on here.

It was 8% just a decade ago.

The US average pay is much higher, part of this goes hand in hand with it being easy to hire and fire at will. The irony is their unemployment rate is lower. I don't think there was much wrong with having two years to decide if you can work with someone or not. I removed someone at about 22 months a few years ago as she just wasn't up to it. Not something I relished but something I needed to do. I've had others at 5 months I could go either way on. Most come good, but can I risk it? I'm really pleased that day one has been seen off.

I feel like this often, which makes me so sad. They were so wanted, and I love them so much, but I'm so scared for their future 🙁The rules we grew up with - work hard and all will be fine - does not seem to be the case any longer.

There are over 450k more people in work now than 12 months ago.

That depends what data you look at. According to PAYE records there are fewer. Youth unemployment is 15% already, it isn't a genius move to make them more expensive to employ.

If the rest of your post is intended to defend the young people's minimum wage increase of 23% in 53 weeks then I'm afraid that I think it is economically illiterate.

It doesn't matter how deserved it is or how much CEOs are paid, if it reduces the available jobs and encourages losing them permanently to automation, then it isn't going to resolve any unfairness in society.

Well, can you explain why a younger person, doing exactly the same job & perhaps more productive should earn significantly less??

A 20yo carer vs a 21yo carer

Even now, a 20yo will earn £2.71 less per hour than a 21yo, drop that by another 23% (approx another £2 ph less) if you had your way.

Bare in mind, NMW roles tend not to be be perfectly skilled so the argument that significant training is required, doesn't hold water.

Youth unemployment was 13% in 2018, 14% in Q3 2024 - July to September, pre budget and wage increases.
So it was increasing in any case.

PAYE pay roll figures don't take into account the self employed, rather unreliable.

One reason why the UK lags behind in productivity is we have failed to automate, relying on cheap disposable labour instead of getting machines that can, if required, work 24/7.

You seem to want it both ways, arguing AI is coming and should be welcomed but when it does, want lower wages to prevent this.. why not lower wages for everyone, why stop at the under 20s?? think of all the extra jobs!!

& you have the nerve to call me economically illiterate!

We could have more nurses, if we dropped their salaries by 23%....

The Daily Mail are reporting that Nato have said we're on the brink of a war with Russia that could be the size of the world wars. No idea how much truth there is in that but it could be that we'll all be employed as builders or soldiers in the not too distant future.

Maybe they will be taught online from home if parents are no longer needing to work, or work part time

People are still assuming that the economy will be exactly the same in AI, we will have to have money, we will need to print it, hand it out etc.

Whatever happened to change positivity and the love of innovation?

We are in a time of over production, shortly a time when everything is done by AI. Why do we need money at all? It began as an exchange medium of equal value, metal for product, but now it’s an entirely fictional electronic nonsense used by the super rich to maintain power over means and results of production. Why cant we come up with an entirely different method of distribution of all this new wealth that AI is magically going to create?

Oh yes, this is the age of power and lies so why bother? Let the super rich turn entire nations, who not long ago had the risible effrontery to call themselves democratic societies based on law, back into unthinking slaves.

What would be the point of learning if no jobs?

The next logical question in the argument is "what is the point of us at all if we automate enough of the tasks we have rourtinely had a hand in?"

I try exceptionally hard not to slip into nihilism but both personal circumstance and the wider world do occasionally have me peering at my navel with increased curiosity mixed with dread. Everything seens incredibly paradoxical these days - "believe in yourself but remember you are unimportant and disposable" "earn money to spend but reduce or completely avoid consumerisn" "plan for the future but be prepared for it to change according to 'the markets' rendering said plans pointless" .

And while the advice is to hunker down and just do ones own thing, it's incredibly difficult to detach from everything. I am in awe of those who remain relentlessly upbeat and positive in the face of it all to be honest, because there is plenty of evidence that the silver linings are a damn site smaller than the clouds - and have you seen the price of silver these days ??? 🤣

At no time have I said I want wage decreases. Do not put words in my mouth.

Only an idiot would not be able to see that if you increase wages by 23% in one year and one day, when many of those people work in low profit margin businesses, that that is going to affect employment.

Wanting something to happen and knowing that it is right morally that it should happen does not mean that it is possible to do it. Especially when you are talking about the economy.

Illiterate & now an idiot! you re excelling yourself!

u20 wages went by a similar amount under the previous Govt, i don't recall your outrage.

As i said, if a 20yo is doing the work, then he or she should receive the same salary as a 21yo.

You re arguing that lower wages, increase employment... so why not cut salaries? its the logical conclusion of your argument.

& yes morality matters, making it not matter, is how we have ended up where we are.

But according to you, AI is coming, removing the need for work, so why are you now arguing for increased measures (via lower wages) to keep jobs?

You re arguing that lower wages, increase employment

No I am not. I am arguing that a 23% increase in the cost of employing people in industries that typically have low profit margins will reduce employment. Not the same thing at all. Youth unemployment has risen from 11% in 2022 to 15% now and driven at least partly by the MW increase will go higher again.

As i said, if a 20yo is doing the work, then he or she should receive the same salary as a 21yo.

The rates were originally set that way by a Labour goverment to encourage employers to give youngsters with no experiance their first job.

& yes morality matters, making it not matter, is how we have ended up where we are.

Morality can matter as much as you like but if the attempt to achieve it actually disadvantages the very people you are trying to help then practicallity is far more important.

Seriously? What about knowledge for its own sake?

You could be right about the big fancy tractors, however dairy farming is huge here and farmers don't seem to have any difficulty finding workers.

In hard times surely people should be taking on any work? I have two friends, both office workers, who worked on dairy farms for a while.

Yes, I live in a dairy area and dairy workers are not a big issue. Most farms need only a few and they tend to be locals, including often some high school kids.

They also have the nicest tractors of almost anyone. One up the road has 5 brand new, very large, John Deere tractors.

It's the fruit and vegetable farms that struggle for staff. Mostly strawberries near me - we have a lot of blueberries as well but they are very mechanised now. Both were done by kids (including me) in the past but now it's temporary workers.

Plus NI policy and the bill and general doom talk from Labour hasn’t helped. The opposite for jobs, especially for young people. Their policies aren’t working.