Unemployment in the AI era and How to Find a Career that Works for You.
Many people today, especially high school and college graduates, are wondering about how to find employment while in competition with AI. There’s a general fear that AI will take over certain professions, and people would like to find jobs that guarantee security. A comprehensive search of pre-existing literature found that these jobs are most at risk:
Administrative and clerical workers
Customer service representatives
Manufacturing and production workers
Financial analysts and accountants
Legal support staff
Healthcare support roles (coding, billing, scheduling, triage)
Job insecurity and unemployment can have numerous detrimental effects. According to Norwegian data, employees with higher perceived risk of AI replacement experienced elevated depression and anxiety even before they actually lost their jobs. Additionally, fear of job loss due to AI and the need for continuous re-skilling contributed to burnout and disruption of social connection, daily structure, and sense of purpose.
Among the jobs least likely to be replaced by AI, those which are “human-centric” (rely on empathy, complex social navigation, and embodied presence) demonstrate lower likelihood of automation. This includes the following:
Mental health professionals
Care workers (elderly, child, and disability care)
Educators
Creative professionals
Skilled trades
Emergency responders
It’s been shown that when people are unemployed, they experience a higher risk of depression, anxiety, suicide, substance use, and general cognitive and functional impairment. This is because unemployment disturbs a person’s role, can contribute to lack of daily structure, and limits a person’s socialization opportunities.
You might be wondering how to get employment in the current age: the answer is to become curious. Invest in learning a trade that is not being taken over by AI, such as hands-on work. Create a career niche: Ask companies and small businesses what unmet needs they still experience that, if met, could increase revenue. Train yourself or ask for training in exchange for free services, and then if the business benefits from those services, negotiate terms of employment and payment. In this way, you make yourself indispensable to the business, carving an individual niche for your services. See our article on burnout for more tips on finding a vocation.
Structure can greatly help individuals during this time. Research shows that when people maintain daily structure in their life, it is especially beneficial to their mental health. Structure is defined as sleep regularity (in which people go to bed and wake up at reasonable hours and get between 7-9 hours of sleep per night), engaging in meaningful activities (volunteering, socialization, or networking, hobbies, and exercising) on a timely basis, and eating nutritious meals within a proper mealtime. Additionally, hobbies can become skilled trades which can generate income during periods of unemployment.
If you are having thoughts of harming or killing yourself, you can access the suicide hotline at 988 and/or call 911 or bring yourself to the nearest emergency room.
While we do not have control over the increasingly changing economy, we have control over how we respond to it, and through using our potential, we have the ability to create more structured lives for ourselves.
