AI Could Replace 3 Million Low-Skilled Jobs in the UK By 2035, Research Warns (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180208601
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/25/193251/ai-could-replace-3-million-low-skilled-jobs-in-the-uk-by-2035-research-warns
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/25/ai-could-replace-3m-low-skilled-jobs-by-2035-research-finds
> The jobs most at risk are those in occupations such as trades, machine operations and administrative roles, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) said. Highly skilled professionals, on the other hand, were forecast to be more in demand as AI and technological advances increase workloads "at least in the short to medium term."
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> Overall, the report expects the UK economy to add 2.3 million jobs by 2035, but unevenly distributed. The findings stand in contrast to other recent research suggesting AI will affect highly skilled, technical occupations such as software engineering and management consultancy more than trades and manual work.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/25/ai-could-replace-3m-low-skilled-jobs-by-2035-research-finds
They had a good run. (Score:5, Insightful)
Androids and capitalism are incompatible. The shitty deal that the masses made with the wealthy was that there would at least be jobs. When capitalists start giving the jobs to robots, there's no longer any reason for society to tolerate the capitalists.
Or, perhaps more pessimistically, for the capitalists to tolerate society.
Re: They had a good run. (Score:2)
My money is on the androids being used to oppress long before the people would rise up and say enough.
It WILL Replace Them (Score:5, Insightful)
It WILL replace them, to the detriment of all of us.
Just today, I was forced to tangle with an AI customer service agent. In fairness the disclosed that it was a virtual agent at the outset. But, the voice, the tone, the pronunciation, the response time, it was fantastic. I would not have known for many seconds, possibly a minute, that it was not a human. The problem was that, despite its protests, it was caged like any IVR system. This was compounded by the fact that it was dumber than a bag of hammers. It was a blood boiling waste of fucking time. But, it was totally good enough that a company would say, ship it and delete the live agents. Fuck those that don't like it.
this shit is here now! It is absolutely taking jobs and it is only just getting started. We are in fro a world of fucking pain, economically, socially, as consumers, and as former employees. Anyone that says otherwise is either an idiot, a greedy liar, or a dementia patient.
Re: It WILL Replace Them (Score:2)
That is the part that gets me. I could deal with the AI bloatware if I actually had the ability to contact a customer support agent when it inevitably fails. At the moment the AI will just (sometimes incorrectly) repeat to you simple solutions that are easily found and when they donâ(TM)t solve your problem they through you into a loop of never ending false optimism.
Re: (Score:2)
This would cause me to contact a person at the company and get real help or never again part with my money when this company is part of the contract.
I have a list of companies that I will not purchase or use their products just because of the way they support the product.
Re: (Score:3)
The illusion of intelligence evaporates if you use these systems for more than a few minutes.
Using AI effectively requires, ironically, advanced thinking skills and abilities. It's not going to make stupid people as smart as smart people, it's going to make smart people smarter and stupid people stupider. If you can't outthink the AI, there's no place for you.
Trades should be a mixed bag (Score:3, Interesting)
AI-assistants that direct people how to do things like indoor wiring and plumbing may cut down on trades, provided the legal landscape allows it. AI assistants can also help an advanced apprentice-or-higher level person do some work that is more advanced than his level would indicate. But then again, so can having an expert co-worker standing over your shoulder as you ask him questions.
But any time you've got a situation where "if things go south DURING the job, bad things happen" you want an expert there who can react faster than an AI-bot can tell a less experienced person "STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND TURN THAT KNOB CLOCKWISE 1/4 TURN RIGHT NOW OR YOU WILL HAVE AN EXPLOSION."
In other words, I don't think you'll have a huge loss of trades workers because of AI. Some reshuffling and some loss, maybe, but not a huge lost.
Robot machine operators that can operate machines with no people around or in other situations where a "bad event" may destroy equipment but not hurt or kill anyone may be good candidates for robots.
Administrative roles that pretty much operate on a "checklist" or "do it by the book" are candidates for automation, but be careful here: Some of these "do it by the book" roles are intended to do things like catch fraud. For these roles you want people who can "do it by the book" but who have a "spidey sense" to detect when someone is trying to "do the paperwork just right to get past the AI-robo-administrator" but who is in fact trying to do something bad, like steal money.
False (Score:1)
Automation increases number of jobs and also the things you can buy with that money. The thing that has fucked everyone over is real estate prices. And that's because building permits are hard to get. People are afraid that their home value will decline, so they block new building permits for the illusion that it sustains their own home price. That's an evil move (and btw I say that as a homeowner). It's also unnecessary, when more homes are in an area long term it increases the price of real estate in tha
another example of what I pointed out -- aging pop (Score:2)
First post: [1]https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Second post: [2]https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
So how come these "threats" are just never spoken about at the same time?
Crisis 1:
Oh no, the population is aging! We will have so many retirees that can't work! There won't be enough working people to perform all the tasks needed!
Crisis 2:
Oh no, we are getting automation! We will have so many robots that can work! There won't be a need for so many working people with all these robots!
99/100 times when people speak abo
[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23802208&cid=65676250
[2] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23847621&cid=65801101
Re: (Score:2)
Because the robots will be for heavy jobs. Not the Walmart door greeter job that the elderly are doing.
Re: (Score:2)
With regards to "What is the total sum of jobs someone would like to have done by somebody?" you have a point that Crisis 1 and 2 may cancel out each other to some degree. But then there is the issue of "Who pays for those jobs being done?" - and neither the younger ones struggling to get any paid job, nor most older ones (depending on pensions) will own or profit from robots doing work. Those owning large numbers or robots will rather arm those to retain their position of power than just starting to hand o
Between billionaires and retirees (Score:2)
We have too many people disconnected from the economy.
Brexit absolutely destroyed the UK economy but you wouldn't know that if you're an elderly pensioner who voted for it because as the saying goes I got mine, fuck you. At worst you had to sell your Spanish summer home.
The same goes for the billionaires who used to just be lowly millionaires.
Both groups basically have all the political power, the billionaire is because of their money and the old people because of their numbers.
So you get a
Re: (Score:2)
There aren't that many billionaires. The Wikipedia article on them says that there are only a bit above 900 in the U.S. and a little over 3,000 in the entire world. They have a lot of money, but only because other people voluntarily gave it to them because they valued what they were selling. Maybe this isn't the case worldwide and I'm sure there's a warlord or two that managed to export enough wealth from the people to be considered a billionaire, but most of them got there because they built something valu
Good to fill other roles (Score:2)
For instance there are people missing in care jobs. If AI automates away the person who fills boring forms, they may be the person to take care of you in the retirement home.
Re: (Score:2)
No because the reason people don't do care jobs is because they don't pay nearly enough to change adult diapers and the like. The pay won't differently be going up. More people may take the care job after AI, but not for a good reason. It will be because the $30/hr jobs are all gone and not they have to do a care job to make $22/hr.
Not tradesmen (Score:2)
South Park already did this.
AI might reduce starter job openings in knowledge industries, because it will make experienced workers more productive.
But it will never(*) replace builders, carpenters, repairmen, road workers etc etc.
(*) Until Musk's robots become a reality next week (in Musk Time)
Trades and machine operations low-skilled??? (Score:1)
I can't tell if it's sloppy writing or the author really thinks so -- it looks like the author is claiming that trades and machine-operator are low-skilled jobs. Administrative? Maybe or maybe not. In any case, there should be a lively market for proofreaders to make sure garbage writing like this is made clearer. But, I don't know. Do they really even give a damn for articles to be written coherently?
That's ok (Score:2)
We are planning a terrific war so we can get that post-WWII reconstruction/baby boom esthetic going on, and we just happen to need a few million dummkopfs to die, er I mean defend democracy!
leaning on a broom (Score:2, Troll)
The point of the low skilled jobs was to employ people, not to get things done
Re: (Score:2)
No, those are government jobs. No one in the private sector employs anyone (unskilled or otherwise) any longer than they have to. Unless they're in management of course. I think most managers are hired to waste the time of other managers that are also time vampires so that some engineers and developers can actually get things done.