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WHY YOUR KIDS ARE FRETTING ABOUT JOBS THESE DAYS

Something has shifted in the employment landscape over the past six months. Companies now explicitly cite AI in layoff announcements, entry-level jobs are disappearing, and your children's concerns are justified

You've probably noticed it at Sunday lunch, or during phone calls with your adult children. There's an edge of anxiety that wasn't there before when they talk about work, or job hunting, or their career prospects. Maybe your grandchild mentioned that their entry-level job search has been going nowhere for months despite a good degree. Maybe your daughter said her company just announced another round of cuts, citing "AI transformation."

This isn't just media panic or young people being overly anxious. Something genuine has shifted in the employment landscape over the past six months, and it's hitting younger workers particularly hard. Deutsche Bank warned in early 2026 that AI anxiety was going "from low hum to loud roar," and they weren't exaggerating.

So what's actually happening? Is this the beginning of mass unemployment, or is it overblown fear? And more importantly, what should you tell your children when they're worried?

What's changed in the last six months

The shift is real and measurable. Companies are now explicitly citing AI in layoff announcements rather than hiding behind vague "restructuring" language. In February 2026, Workday cut 8.5% of its workforce (1,750 jobs) and specifically mentioned reallocating resources toward AI investment. Ford, Amazon, Salesforce, and JPMorgan have all announced white-collar cuts with similar reasoning.

Bloomberg analysis of corporate earnings calls shows that mentions of AI disruption have doubled compared to a year ago. These aren't speculative conversations about future possibilities anymore but present-tense explanations for current job cuts.

Entry-level positions are being hit hardest. Unemployment among 20-30 year olds in the tech sector has risen 3 percentage points since the start of 2025, and companies are slowing hiring for junior roles because AI is handling tasks that would previously have been given to recent graduates. The traditional entry point into many professions (basic data analysis, first-tier customer support, document review, code testing) is being automated before young people can get their foot in the door.

This is no longer hypothetical. Jobs are being cut, hiring is being frozen, and AI is being named as the reason in public statements and regulatory filings.

Which jobs are actually at risk

The impact isn't evenly distributed. Clerical and administrative roles are the most vulnerable, which matters because 86% of people in these positions are women. Data entry, basic bookkeeping, scheduling, document formatting - tasks that once employed millions are increasingly automated.

Customer service positions, particularly call centres and tier-one support, are being replaced rapidly by AI chatbots that can handle routine queries without human involvement. Legal assistants and paralegals are seeing their document review and research tasks automated. Even entry-level programming jobs are under pressure as AI coding assistants handle basic debugging and code generation that junior developers used to cut their teeth on.

The jobs that remain safer are those requiring physical presence or complex human judgment. Trades like plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry can't be done remotely by AI. Healthcare roles that involve direct patient care (nursing, physiotherapy, care work) are relatively protected. Teaching, particularly at primary and secondary levels, still requires human relationships and judgment that AI can't replicate. Skilled technical roles remain in demand, though entry-level technical positions are struggling.

Here's the critical distinction that gets lost in sensational headlines: most jobs won't disappear entirely, but tasks within jobs will be automated. This means fewer people are needed to do the same work. A department that needed five people now needs three. That's not total elimination, but it's still two jobs gone, and those losses hit new graduates hardest because companies keep experienced staff and don't hire replacements.

Research shows that 79% of employed women versus 58% of employed men work in roles considered high-risk for AI displacement. Clerical and administrative jobs have the lowest "adaptive capacity" because workers in these roles tend to be older, have limited savings, and possess narrow skill sets that don't transfer easily to other sectors. Brookings Institution data suggests 6.1 million workers lack the resources to transition if their jobs are displaced.

Why young people are particularly worried

Your children and grandchildren aren't being dramatic when they express concern. The job market they're entering genuinely is harder than what previous generations faced, and the traditional path of "get entry-level job, learn on the job, work up" is breaking down.

Entry-level jobs are being eliminated faster than mid-career roles because those junior positions were the training ground. Companies expected to hire graduates, give them routine tasks to build competence, and promote the good ones. Now they're expecting AI to handle those routine tasks and only hiring people who already have experience.

This creates a vicious catch-22 that recent graduates articulate constantly: you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience. That paradox has always existed to some degree, but it's intensified dramatically. The number of "entry-level" job postings requiring 2-3 years of experience has increased, openings for genuinely junior roles have decreased, and graduates are competing against experienced workers who've been laid off and are willing to take lower-level positions.

The anxiety you're seeing isn't young people being soft or unprepared. They're facing a genuine structural change in how the labour market works, and the path that worked for their parents' generation (get degree, get job, build career) is no longer reliable.

What's probably overblown

That said, perspective matters. Predictions that technology would "kill all jobs" have been made repeatedly throughout history and have never materialized. The Luddites in 1811 thought mechanized looms would end textile work. Economists in the 1960s warned computers would cause mass unemployment. ATMs were supposed to eliminate bank tellers (instead, banks opened more branches with fewer tellers per branch, and total employment in banking rose).

AI still makes significant errors that require human oversight. The systems are impressive at generating text, code, and images, but they hallucinate facts, misunderstand context, and produce confident nonsense regularly enough that companies can't fully trust them with critical work. Many tasks still require human judgment, creativity, physical presence, or relationship-building that AI can't replicate.

New jobs are being created, though they're different from the ones being lost. AI training specialists, prompt engineers, systems integrators, and oversight roles didn't exist five years ago. Whether these new positions will outnumber the jobs lost is an open question, but employment isn't a zero-sum game.

Goldman Sachs estimates that AI puts about 2.5% of US employment at risk of displacement, which is significant but not the 50% that some breathless headlines suggest. The difference between "some disruption" and "wholesale replacement of human workers" is enormous, and the latter remains speculative rather than demonstrated.

The anxiety is real, some job displacement is happening, and the employment landscape is shifting. But complete elimination of human work remains science fiction rather than imminent reality.

What to tell your children

When your children or grandchildren express worry about their job prospects, the worst response is breezy dismissal ("it'll be fine, people always worry about new technology"). The second-worst response is panic ("you're right, it's hopeless, the robots are taking over").

The honest response starts with validation. Acknowledge that the job market genuinely is harder than it was and that their concerns are justified. They're not being weak or overly anxious, they're responding rationally to observable changes.

Then move to practical guidance. Encourage them to develop skills that AI can't easily replicate: judgment in ambiguous situations, relationship-building, creativity in problem-solving, and physical skills. If they're uncertain about pursuing office-based careers, trades and healthcare are solid alternatives that can't be automated away.

Suggest they focus on becoming good at working with AI rather than competing against it. The people most at risk are those whose entire job can be done by AI. The people who thrive are those who can use AI as a tool to do work AI alone can't accomplish.

Discourage panic decisions. Don't abandon education or training mid-stream because of job market fears. Don't assume all tech careers are doomed (because they're not). Industries adapt, they always have, and while the transition is uncomfortable, it's rarely as catastrophic as it appears in the moment.

The realistic outlook is this: yes, the job market is harder than it was. No, it's not impossible. The employment landscape is changing, but human work isn't ending. The smart play is developing expertise that's genuinely hard to automate and accepting that career paths will be less linear and predictable than previous generations experienced.

The honest assessment

This IS different from previous technological changes in both pace and breadth. The anxiety your children feel is justified, not just generational nervousness. The traditional career path of linear progression from entry-level to senior roles is disrupted, particularly in office-based professions, and it's legitimate to worry about how that affects young people trying to establish themselves.

But disrupted doesn't mean destroyed. Jobs are changing, not vanishing wholesale. Some roles will disappear, new ones will emerge, and most will transform in ways that require humans to adapt. That's uncomfortable and stressful, particularly for people just starting their careers, but it's not the end of employment.

The best response isn't panic or dismissal, it's honest conversation about which skills and careers are resilient, practical support while your children navigate a genuinely more challenging landscape than previous generations faced, and acknowledgment that their concerns are real even when the solutions aren't clear.

When your daughter worries about her job or your grandson can't find work despite a good degree, listen rather than reassure. The world of work is shifting under their feet, and they can feel it. Your role isn't to convince them everything's fine when it clearly isn't, but to help them think clearly about how to navigate uncertainty with resilience rather than panic.

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Sources:

Deutsche Bank AI anxiety analysis:

Workday layoff announcement (February 2025, not January 2026 as article states):

Bloomberg earnings call analysis:

Goldman Sachs AI displacement estimates: