Hot in herre
so hot fo' real
Hello my friends. Are you melting? Are you? Is your soul slowly dripping out of your pores? Or are you now of those lucky people who has invested in air-con? I am steadfastly remaining in the grin and bear it camp. An by that I mean buying an ice vest and looking like a man wearing waders. Definitely camera off.
Anyway…
I’ve been making myself really down by reading the NEET report that was released last month. That was pretty shit wasn’t it? What it has done is give me a lot of food for thought.
Overall it paints a pretty bleak picture of the state of youth employment in Britain. A place of decreasing opportunity and subsequent frustration. Far from depicting those who are described as NEET as being on a state of wilful state dependency it gives a voice to those that want to work but find themselves in situations where the odds seemed stacked against them.
The report doesn’t deliver any solutions at this point (that will be in a later report), but it does offer up a view of the jobs market which is worth considering as we go forward.
What comes across from the timbre of the report and from the verbatim comments is that work and labour is still desirable. Obviously this is a government report so there is a vested interest in “work=good” in terms of taxation and easing the burden on the welfare state. But an important point is that, ultimately, people still want a job and don’t want to be out of work. For some it is because of the freedom money brings but for many it’s the feeling that work brings in and of itself. The sense of purpose.
This is incredibly important when we consider what is going with what the report calls “a weakening of the early rungs of the career ladder”. There are fewer entry level jobs. Which means fewer opportunities for many to find a purpose. On top of the thought that this will severely affect the country’s ability to collect taxes or deliver benefits, to me, it would seem that it it would probably be a good idea to consider what will happen in a society where so many people feel rudderless.
The report also made me think again about the fewer jobs that are being provided. And how that makes a huge difference to the way that we would now need to think about succession planning.
That’s probably something for another time though.
Why don’t we have some clicks links now? (it is mostly about AI and work though…just so you know)
AI and job stuff
I know I do a lot of AI review that doesn’t seem that positive. Here’s a story that, far from being positive, does position AI differently in the narrative that’s going on at the moment. We hear that AI is causing mass layoffs already, but is that true?
In a small piece of “AI isn’t as bad as all that” is this article which states that companies making the largest investments in artificial intelligence are expanding their workforces rather than shrinking them.
BUUUUT some of the companies that have taken to AI may now seem to be regretting it.
Companies including Walmart and Uber are dialing back their earlier encouragement of AI experimentation due to rising token costs. And from what we’re reading, those token costs are unlikely to be going down any time soon (see below)
Stemming the tide of cuts in early careers roles, M&S has announced a new initiative that will create 1,000 training places for young people across the UK and Ireland.
AI has completely changed the market. According to this article, the problem is everyone’s using AI to write CVs, as well as using AI-powered chatbots and teleprompters to help them get to the next round. For some this triggers an AI arms race to use AI to detect AI cheating. For others, the reality is that, for all this talk - and the predominant perception - that AI is reviewing everything, it’s actually way more human than that…
(a continued shout out to Charlotte from Hiring Gen Z who always has a good and new insight into this sort of thing)
And this is a great episode from Bruce Daisley.
Sarah O’Connor is a journalist for the Financial Times who specialises in writing about work has written a book about AI and job displacement.
Creative stuff
Finally..saw this and loved it
Well - that’s enough from me. Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
Will