Invisible unemployment

Why Having a Job No Longer Means Being Employed

Although the employment numbers seem fine in most areas, employed people seem strangely absent from their work. Many feel unfulfilled, stagnating, unhappy. As if they were easily replaceable and not really all that important anymore.

A friend of mine talks very differently about the job they have been doing for years:

"It's just not fun anymore, it's not like it used to be. My tasks and workflows have changed so much. I hardly recognize the job I once applied for."

My friend's boss had decided that it was high time to implement AI into their workflows, as "everyone was doing it". So, the jobs started to change, to adapt to the use of AI. Some things got done much quicker and much easier, others not so much.
The role of my friend changed from active participation to a more passive observation and guidance of AI. They say that they are feeling a growing distance toward their job, as if they were operating in a dissociated state.

Involved yet not involved, in charge, yet not in control.

Their new tasks consist of monitoring and validating the output of AI. Then correcting it, often by escalating edge cases. They often encounter unexpected behavior, get undesired results, and have to start anew. Often they don't quite know what they are doing as they aren't trained for this new situation. It feels like having to learn something new and urgently so, but not really voluntarily.
My friend learned a craft and honed their judgment over the years. They feel that this is what makes them valuable. Their skill at making the right decisions is what they excel at. Yes, that skill is still very much needed, as AI seems good at iterating but not great at innovating. But the way that judgment, that decision-making skill is applied feels indirect, dissociated, and in final conclusion, unsatisfactory.

"I feel like an AI babysitter!" They told me recently. "That is NOT what I went to school for. I work the same amount of hours, and we are getting better results, we are simply getting more done. But it does not really feel like mine, like my success. I cannot really be proud of having done great work, I can be proud of having monitored great work. It just feels passive."

Just like they were unemployed, as if they lost their job. That's the feeling. My friend is not alone, many are in a very similar situation.

They still have their job, they are still holding that position, getting that salary. So, is it not real unemployment?
It is invisible unemployment. Those people are socially not visible, they suffer in private, often in silence. Many do not dare admit to their feelings. They feel shame because at least they have a job and the one they trained for. How could they admit to these feelings of dissociation? Quitting feels irresponsible, yet staying feels dishonest. In many cases, leaving one's current job also feels like a very bad decision. There aren't many alternatives. Often it is just a matter of time until they introduce the same new workflows at the new job.

How can you express your discomfort about your job to a society which constantly tells you to be happy about your employment in the first place? How can you tell those, who are also in fear, that you are losing your identity?

The perspective of many companies is rather different. They see efficiency, cost reduction, and an increased throughput as massive signals toward AI implementation. Since they do not think in terms of role satisfaction, skill atrophy, or long-term judgment loss, as their employees do, they do not perceive the same problems. The company measures ROI, speed, and output. As long as these go up, a solution is a net positive. Businesses which are aware of the gap between company and employee viewpoints often introduce the concept of "human-in-the-loop". That literally sounds humane, in praxis it often creates the "AI-babysitter" situation from above.

Even worse than being the AI's often bored supervisor is being the AI's scapegoat. Advanced reasoning models do not fail often, but sometimes spectacularly. It is always the human-in-the-loop's raison d'être to catch these errors before they create real damage. If the AI fails, the human has failed and the blame goes to them.

The prolonged, uncritical, and frictionless use of AI can lead to skill decay in the user. Skills have to be practiced to not atrophy. Once one loses a vital skill, an identity-giving skill, one also loses confidence. When confidence is lost, initiative goes away next. Personal motivation finds no space to grow in, growth and learning are not rewarded anymore. They are not needed as much anymore. AI can do it well enough. Compliance in using AI, in the "correct" way, is rewarded.

People become more replaceable. The pressure to not leave your job rises, you have less negotiating power, as you are more easily replaceable. Staying at the job you have might make you even less employable when you leave in the future because of skill-atrophy.

There was always automation and it always led to social change. The rise of AI is global, fast, and in all its consequences hard to foresee. As such, it seemingly accelerates the hollowing of work identities much faster than technologies that came before. It seems to surpass our ability to adapt to it, transitioning time might run out for many of us.

Quite a few businesses react to these changes by trying to re-skill their employees, to make them experts at AI use. Many businesses fail. A lot of employees do not want, or cannot cope with the coming changes, the new situation.

So, they find themselves in a kind of employment limbo. Not quite dispensable yet, not really as useful as before. Employed, yet waning, fading out.

This situation we all find ourselves in does not seem to be a temporary glitch. It might be a structural change, we will all have to deal with in one way or another. Having work does not necessarily mean being employed, being present at work does not necessarily mean that you will feel like you are contributing.

Some jobs seem like buffer zones between the old and the new world. Shock absorbers, soon obsolete.

"The babysitter is not needed anymore, the AI has grown up. Thank you for your service."

If AI adoption keeps rising as it does, what if more and more people become unhappy, are starting to feel unfulfilled, are starting to feel invisibly unemployed?

How will we create room for human and humane growth?