Posted on 10/05/2025 11:03:22 PM PDT by RandFan
Some estimates suggest that half of all white-collar jobs will disappear as artificial intelligence advances. How will older white-collar workers displaced in the AI revolution fare?
Our recent book, “American Idle: Late-Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era,” summarizes interviews we conducted with 62 baby boomers who lost their white-collar jobs during another unemployment crisis: the 2008 Great Recession and its sluggish recovery. Statistics show that workers over age 50 experienced the highest rates of long-term joblessness. Their layoffs also coincided with a precarious stage of the life course: “too young to retire but too old to start all over,” as one of our interviewees put it. Gen Xers today face the same quandary.
There were, however, vastly different financial outcomes after these post-2008 layoffs. At one end of the spectrum were those boomers who experienced “hard falls.” Because long-term unemployment and back-to-back job losses were common within this group, some turned to accessing food pantries, applying for welfare benefits, or losing a home to a short sale or foreclosure. Job losses at the other end of the spectrum were “soft landings,” and individuals were more or less financially unscathed.
Several factors facilitated soft landings. For instance, because these interviewees experienced years of job stability, their extended length of service translated into generous severance packages. Several also departed with defined benefits pension plans in hand. A guaranteed income stream for the remainder of their lives allowed for an unplanned early retirement for some. Family members, such as employed spouses or wealthy parents, were another source of financial support.
Evidence suggests that compared to the boomers we studied, a larger proportion of Gen X are susceptible to hard falls than their predecessors. This demands a structural solution and a universal basic income might be the answer.
First, baby boomers entered the labor force when white-collar workers were rewarded with job security and financial stability. In contrast, today’s office workers are encouraged to always be on the lookout for new opportunities. Frequent job changes, however, translate into a much smaller severance package when length of service factors into the equation. And whereas many of our soft landers had pensions, Gen X entered the labor force just as these secure retirement plans were being replaced with 401(k)s.
Workers are expected to contribute a portion of their salary into these defined contribution plans. But because savings are personally invested, financial illiteracy and market volatility increase the level of risk. At the same time, low wage workers typically lack employer-supported retirement plans, and even if they do have access, they are less likely to participate due to financial hardship.
Not to mention the collective net worth of Gen X is about half that of boomers. Because this generation also carries the highest rates of debt, the ability to retire comfortably will be jeopardized. With lower rates of home ownership than boomers at the same age, many Gen Xers will miss out on the long-term gains that can be derived from owning property.
Finally, a growing share of older adults now live alone. In addition to lacking the financial support of an employed spouse, people who live alone tend to earn less than individuals who are married. This predisposes one-person Gen X households to a financial disadvantage that may turn a layoff into a hard fall.
There is always the possibility that AI-induced job losses don’t materialize, given the current failure of artificial intelligence to increase worker productivity. Still, advancements are inevitable and with almost 900,000 private sector employees having already lost their jobs and another 300,000 federal government employees out of work by the end of 2025, white-collar workers are under threat from many sides.
Older workers are encouraged to protect their finances in this unstable environment but as our research shows, it’s impossible to prepare for a bout of unemployment extended indefinitely by age discrimination in the hiring process.
Targeted education and training programs would empower unemployed Gen Xers to access fields in which job growth is predicted to increase. We must also consider developing a universal basic income program to address long-term joblessness among those older workers who are too young to collect Social Security. Such experiments in other countries have been successful in increasing both well-being and employment rates.
Here at home, several U.S. cities and counties, in both red and blue states, have already experimented with limited basic income programs. For white-collar Gen Xers seeking new employment, this could mean the difference between a soft landing with minimal financial strife, and a hard fall that stresses both personal households and other shrinking social safety nets.
Annette Nierobisz is professor of sociology at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. Dana Sawchuk is professor and chair of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. They are the authors of “American Idle: Late Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era” (Rutgers University Press, 2025).
Well, we don’t produce enough engineers. The majority of grad students in the U.S. in related degrees are foreign born.
“any role that does not require creativity and knowledge will be lost - so plumbers will have job security, but white collar bank pen pushers will not”
Most of our population are Democrats.
Idiots all, in our high tech world,
What do we do with them?
Probably not so many are “needed”, but definitely some are.
The reason is that if there are 100 vacancies and 100 unemployed folks, that isn’t a one-to-one correlation.
Supposed the unemployed folks are bank tellers, but the jobs in demand are for general surgeons. Ok, that’s not going to get filled.
but instead of that extreme, what if you have 100 unemployed bank tellers who lost their jobs to ATMs, but you have 100 vacancies for house painters. About 4 years ago I started trying to paint fences and learnt quickly on that it isn’t as easier as a dumbass like me might think. To get the pain on evenly and do the prep work etc takes skill and knowledge. And the best painters can do a perfect job in 3 hours that would take me 4 days with my results being sloppy.
So the 100 bank tellers would take time to learn and would be slow and unproductive. And out of those 100, perhaps some can’t stand for so long or have other physical disabilities - they won’t be able to take the jobs.
“What do we do with them?”
There was a solution that the Golgafrinchan people came up with.
Golgafrincham was a planet, once home to the Great Circling Poets of Arium. The descendants of these poets made up tales of impending doom about the planet. The tales varied; some said it was going to crash into the sun, or the moon was going to crash into the planet. Others said the planet was to be invaded by twelve-foot piranha bees and still others said it was in danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star-goat.
They then built three Ark ships. Into the A ship would go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the B Ark would hold everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitisers. They sent the B ship off first, but of course, the other two-thirds of the population stayed on the planet and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
Just adding on, about container ship crews - comparing the size of a crew in 1980 to that needed for a larger container ship in 2020:
Container ship crew sizes decreased significantly between 1980 and 2020 due to increased automation and technological advancements, moving from potentially larger crews of a few hundred in the 1980s to typical modern crews of around 20 people in 2020.
This was reduced due to
1. Increased Automation:
Advanced engine monitoring systems and automated control systems reduced the need for manual oversight of engine rooms and other mechanical systems, decreasing the number of engineers required
2. Standardization of Operations:
The increasing use of standardized containers and predictable shipping routes allowed for more streamlined operations, which in turn allowed for smaller crews to manage the workload efficiently.
3. Technological Advancements:
Improvements in navigation, communication, and cargo handling equipment have increased operational efficiency and reduced reliance on large numbers of crew members for these tasks.
The same thing is happening elsewhere. And AI is multiplying the productivity of software engineers incredibly.
If anyone is curious about what a universal basic income will lead to, take a look at the ghettoes of any large city. That's what you get with a universal basic income.
Or take a look at the lives of trust fund babies in NYC. What a worthless bunch of drug-addled perverts and leeches.
Nope.
“If there are too few jobs, why do we need immigration and H1Bs?”
You just committed logic, which means you are racist for noticing.
Some estimates suggest that half of all white-collar jobs will disappear as artificial intelligence advances.
So who will be left to fund social security? Increased business taxes?
Carbon tax, welfare tax, SS tax, income tax, property tax, sales tax, license tax, and now coming soon to a state near you, Universal Basic Income Tax.
To many taxes, not enough jobs, because of Outsourcing jobs and insourcing non-citizens. I am against UBI, it will continue to cause deficits and destroy the nation.
AI threatens specialists more than generalists, and employees of large companies more than small ones.
So if your whole day is writing marketing copy for X product in a large company, yes, your job is going to be threatened. The company made you a machine, so you are easily replaced by a machine.
If your job is in a small company, writing marketing copy, doing layout, sending stuff to the printer, submitting receipts, and packing and shipping on occasion...AI will have an extremely hard time competing.
You mentioned the bank and the factory. Who maintains the plant? Who keeps the toilets clean? Who takes out the trash? Stocks the break room?
Moms and dads know that you don't have to be the most efficient and everything...you just have to be tolerably good at a lot of things that are both intellectual and physical.
Just another way to enslave people.
People need to learn real jobs and how to support themselves by real work, and how to manage money.
The globalists and left have created a society where this is inevitable. All according to design.
Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus!!!!!!!
That is certainly true as well.
This is a manufactured crisis all designed to get the populace dependent on the government.
I see it as the opposite. We look for specialists and are firing generalists. if a person is a specialist in just "has memorized stuff", they lose the job, but if specialist is "knows stuff and stuff around that stuff", they are indispensable and get a higher pay.
and employees of large companies more than small ones.
Yes
Not really - this would be multiple agentic AI with different agents for each of these different tasks, residing in cloud environments communicating via APIs and using the same data.
No. It's. Not.
maintenance can be automated and is being automated in new plants. the same for "takes out the trash" and "stocks the break room"
True. The thing is that the level of "tolerably good" is now going to be higher.
But this is no different than in 1850 or 1990
You'e assuming that old people will be allowed to remain alive. I guarantee the WEF type creeps have funded the creation of a real deadly virus, not just Covid, to wipe out the seniors.
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