{"id":571599,"date":"2026-03-30T22:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571599\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:16:08","slug":"young-workers-will-be-hurt-most-by-ai-but-theyll-also-reap-the-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571599\/","title":{"rendered":"Young workers will be hurt most by AI, but they\u2019ll also reap the benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadians have mixed views on AI, but a 2025 Leger poll found<\/a> that 78 per cent of respondents agree it harms human jobs. Their concern is understandable. <\/p>\n

While history shows that AI is unlikely to lead to wide-scale unemployment, it will create winners and losers. Young workers are currently those most negatively affected by AI, while also being the group best positioned to reap the benefits in the future.<\/p>\n

Every generation has its own version of AI, when a general-purpose technology comes along and brings with it concerns of mass unemployment. In March, 1964, a group of prominent scientists and economists, including two Nobel Prize winners, authored the famous \u201cTriple Revolution\u201d memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson, warning that a \u201ccybernation revolution\u201d was creating a \u201csystem of almost unlimited productive capacity which requires progressively less human labor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite the authors\u2019 prediction that the cybernation revolution would mean a \u201cpermanent impoverished and jobless class is established in the midst of potential abundance,\u201d the percentage of 25- to 54-year-olds in the United States who have a job rose from 67 per cent in 1964 to more than 80 per cent today. <\/p>\n

However, the authors weren\u2019t entirely wrong in their concerns, since the introduction of technologies has created divisions. <\/p>\n

AI superusers are pulling ahead and widening the productivity gap<\/a><\/p>\n

Blue-collar men, for example, have seen erosion in their employment and earnings, as robotics and advances in container shipping have led to a decline in manufacturing employment in the U.S., with jobs being either automated or offshored. <\/p>\n

This has been offset by gains in other areas, as new jobs have been created in logistics and communications, raising the salaries and job opportunities of other classes of workers.<\/p>\n

Despite still being in relative infancy, AI is already creating winners and losers. Two recent research reports from Anthropic and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab both found that AI has created reduced job opportunities for young workers, particularly in knowledge and creative fields, such as coding and graphic design.<\/p>\n

Companies that, in the past, would hire new graduates to conduct low-level research and rudimentary coding and design tasks are choosing to have existing workers use AI instead. <\/p>\n

This trend is leading to reduced jobs for young graduates, which is contributing to the \u201clow-hire, low-fire\u201d equilibrium of Canada\u2019s current labour market, where job losses remain relatively modest but youth unemployment is elevated due to an unusually low number of entry-level hires.<\/p>\n

Why one researcher still views AI as an existential threat to humanity<\/a><\/p>\n

Older workers should not get complacent, however, as AI can boost the productivity and value of the young workers who do get hired, which makes experienced workers relatively less valuable.<\/p>\n

With AI, the playing field between new and experienced workers is levelled, as AI gives new hires access to knowledge that would have taken years of on-the-job experience to obtain. And these effects go well beyond office jobs.<\/p>\n

I experienced this phenomenon firsthand earlier this year when my three-year-old refrigerator began screeching and I decided to fix the issue myself. <\/p>\n

I recorded audio of the refrigerator noise and uploaded it to ChatGPT along with details about the model. It diagnosed the issue as a faulty condenser fan motor and provided instructions for repairing or replacing the motor. It gave me the model number for a replacement motor and, when asked, found the best price in Canada for a unit that could be shipped that week.<\/p>\n

I asked Google Gemini for a second opinion and was given the same diagnosis, replacement unit model number and recommendation on where it could be purchased.<\/p>\n

We tried to buy sweaters with AI. Here\u2019s how it went<\/a><\/p>\n

In any job, workers develop a collection of what economists call \u201ctacit knowledge,\u201d things that are not written down and workers are never trained for but are vital for doing the job well, such as how to identify a broken part by sound or the best place to order a replacement. <\/p>\n

AI can collect much of this knowledge and pass it along to new hires, which increases their productivity, while at the same time devaluing workers who already possess that knowledge. It allows an inexperienced person like me to get up to speed quickly on appliance repair.<\/p>\n

The irony in AI-caused job disruptions is that the best way for a young worker to start a career in a job market where AI has reduced the number of entry-level jobs is to become adept at using AI. Workplaces are full of managers who lack the understanding of both the potential and the pitfalls of the technology. <\/p>\n

Business professor and podcast legend Scott Galloway is correct in his assessment that, \u201cAI isn\u2019t going to take your job \u2013 somebody who understands AI is going to take your job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The takeaway? Those starting their careers would do well to embrace the AI revolution.<\/p>\n

Mike Moffatt is the founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative<\/a> and co-host of the Missing Middle podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadians have mixed views on AI, but a 2025 Leger poll found that 78 per cent of respondents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-571599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}