A silent recession has arrived for recent college graduates. Over the past two years, unemployment among 22‑ to 27‑year‑olds with bachelor’s degrees has climbed to levels seen during economic downturns. A college diploma used to be an ironclad job guarantee. Today it seems more like a lottery ticket with shrinking odds.
This plunge is just the beginning. As generative A.I. improves, entry-level and service sector jobs may increasingly disappear, threatening not just workers, but also the cities where they live. Recent research by the Brookings Institution shows how San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., New York and Washington could soon face significant job disruption, thanks to the rise of A.I. In San Jose, a striking 43 percent of workers could see A.I. transform half or more of their tasks.
There’s little evidence that A.I. has already begun taking jobs en masse. But just as manufacturing towns in the 1960s failed to recognize the looming threat of new technology, today’s leading service hubs risk underestimating the disruption of A.I. — especially as Silicon Valley races to automate white-collar work. As the history of deindustrialization teaches us, spotting early warning signs is crucial to adaptation and survival.
Consider Pittsburgh in the 1960s, when it was still the steel capital of the world. Behind the scenes, a technological transformation was underway. Across the country, mini-mills began cropping up, employing far fewer workers than old blast furnaces did. Companies in Asia built enormous factories with refined technology, eroding U.S. Steel’s dominance. It took over a decade for the force of these advancements to be felt fully in America’s steel towns.
A similar story unfolded in Detroit. In the 1960s, new technologies — including robotics, computer-aided design and improved logistics — gave foreign manufacturers an edge and allowed car companies to operate smaller, more efficient plants. No longer bound to sprawling, unionized complexes along the Detroit River, the Big Three automakers expanded into the suburbs, then farther south and eventually to Mexico and Asia. By 2011, Detroit’s manufacturing employment had plummeted roughly 90 percent compared to what it was in 1950.
Modern service capitals tell themselves they aren’t dependent on one industry, yet diversification may be a thin cushion when the disrupter is a general‑purpose technology. Generative A.I. writes marketing materials, prepares tax returns, cleans data, codes software and drafts lesson plans.
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The post The 1970s Gave Us Industrial Decline. A.I. Could Bring Something Worse. appeared first on New York Times.
