Isn't it likely that when AI displaces a young college-educated worker from a job, she then seeks out and obtains a job that would typically be performed by someone without a college degree, thereby displacing them? The premise that AI would disproportionately affect recent college grads ignores the fact that they can just trade down while non-college-educated workers can't trade up.
The completely out of control employment visas & illegal migration (AKA the new slave class fueling quarterly profits) and then, of course, the same outsourcing that's been destroying them for three decades now.
We helped corporations eradicate small business and then we gave them permission to hire anyone but Americans. This shouldn't be a mystery.
The Agglomerations post argues that the real mystery is age, not education. If my understanding is accurate then isn’t the “right question” Agglomerations should be asking is not about AI and young adults but "What is it about being 22-25 years old in 2026--culturally, psychologically, technologically--that is shaping labor market behaviour across educational levels? Sociologists measure attitudes. But only voices reveal lived experience. Does Brene Brown's insight that people's behavior cannot be understood without understanding their emotional landscape--especially shame fear, and the need for belonging? If the Western Liberal/humanist Idea which has guided civilization will continue to best solve the problems of the chaotic south and the rise of the autocratic east it requires the creativity of those 22–25-year-olds and AI. Their time is now.
I think the answer is pretty obvious that a machine can do work cheaper than a human can. Unit cost dominance is the key. Once a machine can do cognitive work a hundred times cheaper and eleven times faster, it's game over.
Older people have jobs, and it's hard to fire people, but it's the people who never get hired. That's easy, and that's what young people suffer from.
AI is eliminating the bottom rungs of the ladder. The easier work where you would previously hire a junior. You can just get a $20 bot to do. It is going to get worse, though, because one person plus AI can wipe out an entire team, and it will eventually filter through.
The young people are just canaries in the coal mine. AI will wipe out a lot of white-collar jobs because it's cost-effective to do so on an individual level even though its ruinous on a global level.
How did the employment rate get worse, when you excluded unemployed-but-attending-school? If the denominator got smaller, then shouldn't the % get larger? Is it because a lot of those attending school are also employed?
Couldn't it just be that many of these entry-level jobs are being outsourced?
Isn't it likely that when AI displaces a young college-educated worker from a job, she then seeks out and obtains a job that would typically be performed by someone without a college degree, thereby displacing them? The premise that AI would disproportionately affect recent college grads ignores the fact that they can just trade down while non-college-educated workers can't trade up.
The completely out of control employment visas & illegal migration (AKA the new slave class fueling quarterly profits) and then, of course, the same outsourcing that's been destroying them for three decades now.
We helped corporations eradicate small business and then we gave them permission to hire anyone but Americans. This shouldn't be a mystery.
The Agglomerations post argues that the real mystery is age, not education. If my understanding is accurate then isn’t the “right question” Agglomerations should be asking is not about AI and young adults but "What is it about being 22-25 years old in 2026--culturally, psychologically, technologically--that is shaping labor market behaviour across educational levels? Sociologists measure attitudes. But only voices reveal lived experience. Does Brene Brown's insight that people's behavior cannot be understood without understanding their emotional landscape--especially shame fear, and the need for belonging? If the Western Liberal/humanist Idea which has guided civilization will continue to best solve the problems of the chaotic south and the rise of the autocratic east it requires the creativity of those 22–25-year-olds and AI. Their time is now.
Thanks for a great analysis.
I think the answer is pretty obvious that a machine can do work cheaper than a human can. Unit cost dominance is the key. Once a machine can do cognitive work a hundred times cheaper and eleven times faster, it's game over.
Older people have jobs, and it's hard to fire people, but it's the people who never get hired. That's easy, and that's what young people suffer from.
AI is eliminating the bottom rungs of the ladder. The easier work where you would previously hire a junior. You can just get a $20 bot to do. It is going to get worse, though, because one person plus AI can wipe out an entire team, and it will eventually filter through.
The young people are just canaries in the coal mine. AI will wipe out a lot of white-collar jobs because it's cost-effective to do so on an individual level even though its ruinous on a global level.
How did the employment rate get worse, when you excluded unemployed-but-attending-school? If the denominator got smaller, then shouldn't the % get larger? Is it because a lot of those attending school are also employed?
Remember it's normalized to the 2023 peak for each subgroup.