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.

The point still stands that if you think lower wages helped youth employment, then lower wages? thats the logical conclusion of your argument.

I'm not talking about the 16yo just out of school, these jobs are relatively low skilled.
Of course there is an argument for a lower starter salary but once up to speed, the wage should be the same.

As for youth unemployment, yes its been rising since the pandemic, Youth mental health issues, WFH, NMW increases, people eating/drinking out less, a recession in 2023, AI... all take their toll.

As for "policies not working" why did youth unemployment increase in 2022, 2023 and 2024?

It's funny that a thread that started with "How AI is crashing employment rates" then becomes "its Labour fault employment rates are falling..."

Will you please stop putting words in my mouth, I did not say that at all and it is absolutely not the logical conclusion of my argument, and all you are doing is ex choosing your own inability to think logically.

And back to the topic, out with a friend recently whose small business has replaced two workers with AI and outsourced a third with a WFH job to the Philippines for a fraction of the salary (though they've made the Phillipino very well off in his own country).

The combination of committed employees with great skills in other countries who are more than able to replace employees in the UK who insist on working from home, and AI, is a huge double whammy for the middle class professionals these days.

Wishing good luck to everyone currently looking for a job.

Exposing not ex choosing.

Yep. I think people will realise the job market does matter and Labour are damaging it. There was a piece on an icecream business closing due to rates. That’s not AI and they’d likely employ a few young people in summer months.

So higher wages are causing more unemployment? thats your belief.

So why wouldn't lowering wages increase employment? we could reverse the 18 to 20yo rates and employment should increase, surely thats the logical conclusion of your argument, explain why it isn't rather than the continuing with the name calling.

I believe Reform have said they will lower wages for young people, they believe it will increase job opportunities.

Had a quick Google, one company closing stated the reasons as "a v poor summer and relocation costs"
Another a 127yo business, said " a very poor summer, high costs energy and labour & intense competition"
Another said access to skilled workers.

So perhaps paint the whole picture, rather than the one you wish to paint.

Lower NMW, means higher tax bills as employees can claim more in-work benefits, so basically some want the tax payer to subsidise many companies, i wonder how that ends?

I don't think it's in MN rules that I have some kind of duty to educate you, but I'll give it a go since you appear to be open to hearing it.

Let's say a million young people are employed in one million jobs. If you increase the costs of employing those million young people by 23% in 53 weeks, in businesses which operate high volume at low profit, (which is where most of them work), then employers will look for every way possible to make do with fewer staff. Hospitality has already, I think, laid off over 100,000 and that's before the additional 6.7% in April and not counting reduced shifts for people still employed.

They don't need any more staff. Lowering those wages won't make them increase their costs by employing more staff.

Lowering wages might make it less advantageous to invest in automation, and the mass immigration of recent years has certainly contributed to the UKs current pretty appalling productivity levels. So lowering wages would not be good for the economy.

I think you've misunderstood me completely. I'm not in any way against raising minimum wages to living wage level, or leveling up the younger rates a bit.

But 23% in 53 weeks is an enormous hit on businesses with high staff costs that make margins of only a few percent, and it's causing job losses and business closures. The intention is good, the application of it is deeply flawed.

Oh and as announced last week we now have the ridiculous situation where, at the same time, the government has made it much less attractive to employ young people while promising young people that they will subsidise employers to provide first jobs for young people.

And that you really couldn't make up!

Back to AI and automation anybody? A robotics company has just released a 6 armed humanoid robot that can do complex manual operations way better and quicker than any human.

I have just explained much of that to you over the last few posts, on automation and cheap labour, specifically.

I think i can add condescension to the list now 😂

Nuts isn’t it

This is the real reason why unemployment is increasing, employers wont recruit when they believe that automation is coming.

I recently saw an article on wheel barrow manufacture in the UK.

The owner had invested in metal folding & welding robotics that meant production could be scaled to 24/7....

So no need for metal workers or welders.

You didn't explain anything of that in any way I could understand and you accused me several times of saying things I hadn't said. You told me I believed in lowering wages and thought that would increase jobs! And now you take offence at me explaining why I don't and it won't. So I'll call it quits on trying to engage with you now. Have a nice Christmas.

Its support and training for the long term youth unemployed people that employers wouldn't touch.

My partners son has been helped with this via the Kings Fund, he was unemployed for 2 years (100s of job applications, 3 or 4 interviews) they paid a firm to employ him.
After the 6month period, they took him on FT, flat out now leading up to Xmas.

You need to learn what Labour are planning, not what you read in the Express,

You need to learn what Labour are planning, not what you read in the Express

Says the person who thinks automation of a wheelbarrow factory explains job losses in hospitality.

Labour wanted growth their policies are leading to contraction and job losses. They can’t get why or what to do about it.

And the economy’s shrunk again …..GDP fell by 0.1% in October.

The way to bankrupt a country enroute to civil unrest.

I posted this on the war thread but I feel it's pertinent to this thread too. As I said before War brings activity and employment.

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and news recently and this is my prediction Call me nuts if you want.

Trump needs minerals.
He needs them for AI energy and winning the race of AI domination with China. This is accelerating rapidly and he knows this.

He can't get them from China so he is willing to get into bed with Russia to get them and win the race. He knows Russia are weak in this area and won't win the Ai race

Once US has screwed everyone in Europe over US will then screw Russia over too.

I do believe there will be a war but centred round Israel rather than Russia v Europe We may get dragged in. But they are fighting for religion and ideology not land so won't give in.

When the war in Europe comes it will be around ai and is more likely to be a civil war with the US and China dominating and the rest of us scrabbling around for crumbs.

If we want to be in with a chance our best chance at any survival in the economy is to get into bed with trump to and be he lapdog as painful as that would be.

@Imdunfer I don’t follow your logic on how UK employees are losing jobs to outsourcing because they insist on working from home. It costs employers even more to have staff working in offices here than having them wfh, as then they have to pay for office space, energy, water bills etc. If they want to outsource overseas, they will whether employees wfh here or not.

Now you re just making things up... AI got to you?

I mentioned automation in a 'barrow factory because those robotics have cost young people employment... is it really that difficult for you to grasp?

Bottom line is you welcome AI & all the free time it will bring (ie job losses) but when we have job losses, some of which, not all, is due to AI, then you re up in arms about it.

What exactly do you want?

We didn't have civil unrest and bankruptcy in the last 2 quarters of 2023, when we had 6months of contraction and a recession.

Economists, not me, say the drop in GDP is due to the JLR hack, wrecked the car industry and associated industries.

For some strange reason: The Business Confidence Index (BCI) of the United Kingdom was 100.7in October 2025, a significant increase from the previous month. During this time period, business confidence was highest in late 2021 and was at its lowest point in May 2020

and

The S&P Global UK Manufacturing PMI rose to 50.2 in November 2025 from 49.7 in October, confirming preliminary estimates and marking the first reading above the neutral 50.0 level since September 2024

Perhaps they are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of more AI, higher productivity and getting rid of all these pesky workers and their wage demands...

You can pay a Phillipino coder/designer/etc etc a far lower salary to work from home than someone working from home in the UK.

What exactly do you want?

I want to stop wasting my time engaging in this level of debate with someone who can't tell the difference between talking about the present day and present policies and the future.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m3zm9jnl1o.amp

Only end of Oct Amazon report 14,000 job losses. This is one company and one announcement.