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'm lucky to have a job, but I'm doing the work of 3 people and daren't say anything. Whenever I've hinted I've been told 'we don't have any more budget'. I'm managing a whole department pretty much single handedly, other people in my network doing similar roles in similar organisations would be managing teams of 5-6 at least. But after a stint of unemployment last year I'm grateful for the regular income.

One knock on effect of this jobs crisis is that employers can treat staff like shit, or get them to work twice as hard for half as much pay, and (most) people can't vote with their feet and get something else, or say anything.

"In 2024, 40% of companies posted listings for “ghost jobs”, nonexistent positions advertised to create the illusion that the company is doing well enough to take on new employees."

That's insane - DP has been trying to get out of self-employment and applied for loads of jobs which he seems a great fit for, only not to hear back while the posting remains more or less permanently online. I had wondered what was going on and maybe this explains it.

I think that's happening a lot. I've spoken to a number of people working for employers who have been making redundancies and then expecting those who are left to cover the additional workload without a commensurate pay increase. These people just 'suck it up' as they are petrified of losing their jobs too.

This has been reported a lot too.
From the sort of things that are being talked about on SM, I'm sure that the job market is already far worse than the official figures suggest.

That's pretty much standard in the public sector and has been for a while. My LA announced a load of jobs at risk last week.

In the meantime we're being encouraged to use AI to 'help us work faster' so we can get things done in tighter timescales with less staff. It's a real mess.

I just don't get what the advantages are to doing this though. I mean is it small companies with the person running them just wanting their friends to see that they're doing well for a bit of a weird boast or is there some mechanism where larger companies see their share price increase significantly if they're seen to be doing well in this way? Are there people measuring this in a way that creates financial incentives to do it? It's time and effort that could be spent on something else unless it's profitable in some way?

You must work for my LA!!

Yes, some of them were teachers, but not all. It's a mess, as you say.

I’ve also seen adverts for teaching posts where a bit of work to look into it (like trying to contact the agency which placed the ad, to find out which school the job is in) leads to the conclusion that they’re data phishing scams- the phone line is engaged (even when the office is closed) and the websites are very pretty and very uninformative. Maybe they’re ghost ads but with an application process where the site tells you to submit your CV directly via their ‘apply now’ button, they must be collecting a lot of data about anyone who does that.

Maybe they’re ghost ads but with an application process where the site tells you to submit your CV directly via their ‘apply now’ button, they must be collecting a lot of data about anyone who does that

Scary, because application forms ask so many questions that you might give away details that you wouldn't normally - so not just data mining but criminality. Ie, place of birth, then they ask you to set up a password with mother's maiden name etc

We had a vacancy that couldn't be filled due to budget and next thing, someone is giving us an AI workshop 'so we can learn to increase capacity in the team'.

yes I’m sure the new year will all be even more hours, go even faster etc.

It’s very scary and real.
I worry about it for my children and just generally for our country / world.
i feel grateful my husbands business will not be affected by AI there are no bots that could do his job. But I am aware many many other people are not in the same boat

Jobs are going in the NHS too. Despite the huge demand for health services and the already-low per capita figures for health staff per capita.

I can think of many reasons why moving to work is not an option and I speak as someone without much family tie who has moved several times. It’s hard, moving to a new area with no ties, in both social terms and knowing where to go.

Money is a big one. People with money, born into it from mummy and daddy, have never appreciated that many people in Britain are impoverished and today have less than ever. Food poverty is real, I used to be dressed in hand me downs and used to struggle with clothing for work, many are homeless. But of course we don’t matter. Transport costs, also more expensive and more limited than ever.

Housing. Are you on the moon that you don’t know Britains housing market is broken? I had to move region to have any hope of owning to give my kids a bit of solid background, somewhere to stand. I lost my career as a result. Nothing has improved, it’s getting worse.
Most jobs do not pay the cost of housing, either buying or renting.

The pp who talked about moving mentioned youngsters moving to Germany. Ha ha. That was only ever possible for the middle classes anyway - I could not afford a passport until I was 30-odd- and now not even for them (also much easier for southerners than northerners). There was a little issue called Brexit. We have no rights in Europe. Fewer youngsters are studying languages because there are no jobs in it, they’ve been taken by computers (Google translate) for the last 20 years or so.

Our government does not care about people: we can be replaced from around the world. This is already happening.

This is not ‘managed decline’. There’s nothing managed about it. Management would require that people be given some kind of alternative way of living. Every single avenue is instead being shut down and the elites make things harder by allowing buy to let, then air b’n’b in huge numbers, watching jobs be cut in tens of thousands in diverse sectors year on year, the possibility of retraining eradicated. Media was first to go so it’s difficult to pull information together even for those trained in it, and sectors don’t communicate. The same thing has been happening across the public sector and has been for 25 years: lower levels made to take on extra responsibility as higher levels are sacked, now those lower levels are the low-paid highest and being sacked now as minimum wage staff are made again to take on new skills. We know about generational inequality.

Yet all we get is gaslighting and propaganda. ‘Change positivity’ and ‘change management’ was the watchword of the Blair years, now it’s ‘maximise capacity in teams’ via AI and still we get cuts, cuts, cuts while the number of billionaires and their wealth absolutely balloons and inheritance is NOT taking over, it has taken over. Past tense.

There have never been any answers and we are sleepwalking with tech into every dystopian world ever imagined.

Just work harder!!

Right you are guvnor!

It’s a perfect storm of AI improving productivity in small businesses, NICs, rates & minimum wage rises increasing employers costs and a naive belief by government that the new workers rights legislation will improve rights for workers. It won’t. It will mean contracts and job roles being cut now before the six month rule comes in.
This is not the fault of AI which is fantastic technology and has great potential for improving lives. Technology is neutral. It’s just a tool. It’s how it is used that matters. This is a political decision.
AI is making the barriers to entry for starting a business much lower. Government should be putting real resources into smart startups. If you are concerned about the long term employment situation, have you considered setting up a business and helping to grow the economy? It’s easier than you think. We need more electricians. We also need more entrepreneurs.

Yes we need more entrepreneurs but I don't think that the mindset that tells people who are at risk of being made redundant that they could 'just' become one is quite fair. To build a business, you need to offer a service and/or a product. For that, you need:

1. skills that are in demand (tricky if you're being made redundant because AI can replace what you do)
2. a client base that you can tap into (tricky if you've not been client-facing, market research is a skill unto itself and relationships don't get built in a day)
3. as for a product- you might have a great idea but developing a product from scratch requires funding and investors (again, not a skill many people have and it's easy to sink your savings into a new endeavour - that is, if you have savings to begin with)
4. it also requires you to build an infrastructure from scratch: as an employee, you don't need to worry about accounting (unless you're an accountant), business insurance, marketing etc. As a new business, everything is on you alone and the set up costs quickly start adding up, even if you don't want anything fancy to begin with. I also think that our tax system is ridiculous as there is next to zero incentive or support right now to start a business. So no, I don't think it's as simple as saying everyone should be entrepreneurs.

Do you work in AI/ML? Of course there are accuracy problems! It starts with the data - who has checked for errors and bias? An AI trained on poor data will give poor results. Then, what has the AI beeen tasked to do? Is it clear? Who has checked for potential risks? For instance, in recent tests AI have been tasked to sell as many x as possible by any means neccessary, and have been found to employ manipulative and fradulent activitynto achieve those goals. Thay's why if you work in the industry you will constantly hear 'human in the loop', humans are needed to keep models on track. The trouble is, you only need a fraction of the curreny workforce to do that. And what we haven't accounted for is that a free market economy relies on people having some disposable income. Who will buy things, when no one has jobs?

I think entrepreneurs do need all that but underlying it, it takes a certain type of personality that you either have or dont' have. To work out all of the above, an appetite for risk but not too much risk, and the sheer joy of playing the bloody game!

I’m a small business owner. I had planned to hire two people this year but ni hikes make it impossible.

And someone needs to ask where will tax come from when that happens.

I absolutely agree and I am hugely sympathetic to anyone facing redundancy. I’ve been there myself. I just wanted to add a different perspective to the debate. Nobody is born with a product, a client base and business skills. Entrepreneurs develop these, often after honing them in their careers and occupations.
The sad truth is the nobody owes anyone a job. We all have collective responsibility for growing a healthy economy and that takes people taking calculated risks and starting businesses. Obviously, it’s not for everyone but there are many brilliant and motivated people on Mumsnet who have the skills and the drive and who might not have considered it. It’s at least worth exploring if you are redundant and unable to find a new job. There is quite a bit of free advice and support out there. Many businesses can be started as a side hustle alongside a job and therefore less risky while getting established. Technology has never been so available and barriers to entry have never been so low.
We are entering a period of huge disruption but also huge opportunities. For some establishing a business will be worth considering.
I would also advise people who are worried about their own jobs or the children’s jobs to embrace and learn everything they can about AI. It’s here to stay and changing v rapidly.
A friend who was travelling in Singapore recently saw a group of children working on computers on a Saturday morning. He asked what they were doing and was told “It’s Saturday morning AI school”. They were learning how to implement AI.
Nothing like that is happening here and the job market is increasingly global. We need to wake up to this reality.
AI won’t take your job. Someone who knows how to implement AI will take your job.

I agree with some of that pp in that the tax system and overall policy is working against business set up which is bad, but I also agree with you a few of the things listed are not ready and waiting for people who set something up.

They have to mess through and find it all as they go.

I like your last line for its pacing and writing, I was wondering if you had views on what the best degree is these days, maths? Or other