Are you scared yet?

Entry level jobs are disappearing. Computer science grads are facing high unemployment. AI is coming for your job. It’s impossible to keep up with the flow of AI news. And, if you stop to actually do something, you fall behind instantly. The stock market is wonky. The economy is threatening to suffocate itself. Recession is imminent. Politics is absurd. Important pieces of reliable infrastructure are disappearing. All of a sudden, there is a heightened nuclear threat. The nature and execution of war is rapidly evolving and we’re behind. Opportunity is unfairly distributed.

Don’t forget climate change. The list goes on and on and on. It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s all designed to frighten because that causes the clicks that drive revenue for the media companies. Fear sells ads. Fear begs you to believe that everyone will trade their integrity for a little security

While I can’t begin to address it all, there are some meaningful things to know about entry level jobs, unemployment, and technical disruptions of work.

First off, the idea that entry level jobs are disappearing (because of AI) is just stupid. An entry level job is where you start when you have minimal work experience. Every person who works started somewhere.

Their point of entry into the workforce was their entry level job. If there are no entry level jobs, people aren’t working. That’s the underlying prompt for your fears. It's not about entry level jobs, it's about something deeper.

The idea that entry level jobs are disappearing means that work itself is disappearing. The point of view demonstrates a very low opinion of what people do and how they learn. Humans are, if anything, adaptive creatures.  Like the internet, they route around obstacles.

Between 1970 and 1997 (a whole generation), people believed that unemployment could never go below 5%. In the following 25 years, unemployment was below 5% seventy percent of the time.  For the majority of those 25 years, entering the workforce was very easy for a certain range of people. (Unemployment stats link in the comments)

The paler your skin and the higher your social class, the easier the transition from school to work was. It wasn’t easy for everyone. But for a privileged subset, the idea that education somehow guaranteed a job became a new form of entitlement. It was different for those who couldn’t conform or couldn’t afford. Their path was not free from friction.

And still, everyone in the workforce started somewhere. Everyone who entered had an entry level job.

So, what’s really going on?

Friend Richard Rosenow has written eloquently about the part of the confusion caused by the way AI is disrupting things (link in the comments). His view is that senior management (old people) are protecting their jobs by automating the work previously done by young people. Soon, he thinks, AI will be coming for those old people. 

For sure, new technology has and will continue to change the way we acquire, learn about, and develop the skills we use at work. It changes the paths we take into and out of our work life. It changes the availability of opportunity.

And still, in the absence of Universal Basic Income (UBI), most people need to work.

 The workforce entry paths are changing. The qualifications for some kinds of work are evolving rapidly. Things that used to be done one way are now being done another.

 In a world predisposed to framing problems as horse races or binary decisions, this is very unsettling. The fantasy that the world will provide certainty is the problem, not the underlying change. The world always changes, nothing is guaranteed.

 So, what happens in times of rapid change? Following the rules stops working. Creativity, enthusiasm, and the hunt for real opportunity becomes the way of the world for a while. Institutional ways of seeing the world are at risk. Rewards start to flow to people who want to create value rather than to people who want a job.

 It’s upsetting to some but entirely normal. You have to start somewhere.