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.

So those firms are basically making themselves redundant within two generations? Because senior solicitors won’t exist if paralegals are not recruited. It’s so ridiculously shortsighted.

And the one thing a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that in order for capitalism to continue people must consume, and they cannot do that without jobs. So all these industries that are exploiting AI right now and enjoying their extra profits will eventually realise that consumer is king, and if we don’t have the money to buy their products and use their services then they will end up in the shit like the rest of us. AI cannot grow exponentially because AI needs to be consumed.

I’m going to ruin the thread now.., ‘naturally‘? The most natural state for humans based on time spent in it is hunter gathering and that’s generally thought to have been fairly equal. The birth of agriculture followed by patriarchalism brought elites and cities brought toweringedifices of ‘em… before they collapsed.

It seems to me that new tech always brings in a stab from the elites trying to build themselves new systems of control, before collapse and new negotiations result in more stable social forms again. It’ll come round again. But unfortunately we living now have hell to pay if we’re not born rich.

Im not talking about hunter gatheter societies. Im talking about the fact that capitalism ends up being the default option, look at the failed communist states of last century with the black markets, unless efforts are made to make things more equal.

Maybe the word naturally was not the right one...

Musing aloud, Certainly male violence seems to be the default option. I’m not sure if black market corruption by armed gangs is exactly the same concept as capitalism, certainly not how ‘capitalism’ was envisaged in 60s, 70s or even 90s. Is ‘capitalism’ a static construct? Do not all forms of organisation require effort? Capitalism is actually a fairly new concept, therefore requiring effort to create and maintain. Is it even a useful concept to name if it’s so elastic?

Would like to know what your industry is. What is it? I've been looking for a job for nearly a year now.

I was watching a wildlife documentary the other day and I'm sure the narrator was AI.

I think they said it was Aircraft Maintenance.

Kindle has had an option for an electronic voice to read the book out loud for years. It's not much of a stretch.

I understand that people are worried about the interim phase where there is no UBI, and they are right to be.

But I can't get on board with the sentiment being expressed by posters like the one you replied to, who want to see people sat doing drudge jobs for 8 hours on minimum wage that can be done as well as or better by a machine. One poster even wrote about such jobs as if people somehow couldn't exist without the regulation of a job to go to.

We've been brainwashed into that thinking. Many of the young have seen through it, or are genuinely unable to deal with it. I suspect that UC and PiP are fast becoming a de facto UBI.

Good luck to everyone hunting a job at the moment.

The first requirement being that you live near a big commercial airport and they wonder why they aren't overrun with applicants? I'll bet every car mechanic and car bodyworker apprenticeship is snapped up.

There is no "interim period" if we cannot afford a significant level of unemployment benefit now, then UBI is never ever going to be at the uk avg wage of 37k now or far higher for some.... You think a high flying accountant or Dentist etc on 200k is going to accept a 37k UBI ?? Really!

International firms who control AI, aren't going to hand over vast amount of tax, we cannot even get Amazon to pay the tax burden they should.

I also never said regulation will be needed to keep people in nmw wage jobs either, i said regulation will be needed to keep people in work, many jobs, even on NMW can be very rewarding for the people who do them.

You are also assuming AI will be so slick it will dominate the workplace, it might not, many think its a bubble, it'll have its place but not at the levels first thought.

But if it does and it is used to get rid of employees in huge numbers, then the future is black indeed, you only have to look at how economies functions in the 20s and 30s to see what happens and the end result, then we have very high unemployment, did the the wealthy and/or Governments step in and say "Here you go, have a lot of money so you can keep your previous life style"

Never heard of moving to where the work is?
Babcock Marine have huge order books, need 1000s of workers and apprenticeships, people will need to move.

Is your other name Norman Tebbit?

You are also assuming AI will be so slick it will dominate the workplace, it might not, many think its a bubble, it'll have its place but not at the levels first thought.

I think you are misreading the headlines. Nobody educated in AI thinks AI itself is a bubble. The bubble is the current price of AI company shares, which is ridiculously high just as other tech shares and social media company shares have been in the past. That's precisely because of excitement about what AI is already capable of and what it will be capable of in future.

We certainly are in an interim phase.

Which bit of "companies will have to pay enough tax to pay a big enough UBI to ensure that they still have people available to buy their products and services or they will go out of business" from all the discussion above is it that you don't understand?

Of course UBI won't reach the levels of top salaries and if people want that extra money they'll have to think up some creative ways to earn it by doing things that machines can't.

You're thinking far too short term on this, we aren't talking any time soon.

Lol! no he was a nasty man.

But i moved to the SE after i could find no work in the SW, male school friends went to work in Germany.

If you have no kids, no reason why moving shouldn't be an option? millions of EU citizens have moved for work.

You can't think of any reason why people find it difficult to move for work?

There are many, and one of them is that people who could move but won't move are paid enough money to live on without doing so. Are you advocating stopping benefits for people who won't move?

I understand perfectly what you believe, though it makes me smile when those on the right, always resort to veiled insults.

I just disagree, it is allowed isn't it?

Companies will just move from selling to a mass market to selling to an exclusive one, others will go bust, same as happened during the Great Depression.

What you wont get is Elon Musk et al suddenly giving away Trillions to pay people to sit at home.

"People will need to be more creative etc" like what? what is an Accountant going to do? or a Dentist? You don't know, so you've made my point that we simply do not know what the long term future will be.

The short term is all that matters (the next 10 or so years)

I think a World War is far more likely than your scenario.

You think a single person with no children (which is the sort of person i was talking about) gets more in benefits than they would working? (even on NMW)

Its at most £700 per month, UC and Housing costs combined (£400 and £300) and by the time you pay the HMO room costs, you'd be left with less than £50 per week to live on.

I haven't written anything which should have led you to believe this. You constantly accuse me of being rude to you, yet you ”debate” at this level and your post above it, and also take political point scoring onto totally unrelated threads about my tooth. You can't imagine what might stop people from moving or how people might be able to earn additional money if they aren't chained to a full time job. You make it far too difficult to continue to discuss this with you.

So basically you cannot argue the points because you know you re wrong, of course people can move for work, been going on for generations, not everyone but many people can & do.

You re always making little digs, started with "you re economically illiterate" has continued more or less whenever you reply, such as "is your name Norman Tebbit" "nobody educated thinks this..." & "only an idiot would think this....."

On your tooth issues (i didn't recognise your user name at first) i told you, in good faith, my exp of RC - 3 successful ones.
Implants can fail, they can lead to gum infections, nerve problems, coming loose and having a replacement can be problematic, often involving a bone graft.

I also said that i feel sorry for people, who unlike us, cannot afford to consider RC, let alone implants, even thats wrong!

NHS dentistry has been in the pits since the Blair days, its an issue both main parties have never addressed nor appear likely too.

But perhaps AI will save all our teeth.

, of course people can move for work, been going on for generations, not everyone but many people can & do.

I didn't say they couldn't! You, though, couldn't seem to think of a single reason why anyone might find that either difficult or downright impossible. This is the first time you've accepted that some can't. You might not like it, but what you wrote was very reminiscent of Norman Tebbit who said people should get on their bikes and find work.

I just said in my only 3 posts on the subject that not everyone can move for work & i specifically said in my first post on this subject:

"If you have no kids, no reason why moving shouldn't be an option?"

An Option, something to consider......

How could i be more clear?

Unemployment up and worse for young people.

So bad. Even those who are pro Labour must have dc who want a job.

Yes the unemployment figures are worrying, how much is is due to AI? the trend was up before Labour.

Unemployment has been rising steadily since late 2023. In the three months to December 2023 the unemployment rate was 3.9%. By the time of the general election in July 2024 it was 4.2%, before rising to 5% in the three months to September 2025

But apparently, a UBI is better than a menial job that could be done by automation.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/17/ghost-jobs-robot-gatekeepers-ai-interview-job-hunting

Saw this piece today and thought it fits right in here....