So Like, What Happens Now?
I'm being laid off beginning next year. A lot of other people in industries we heard were supposed to be future proof are also being laid off. There have been economic downturns forcing people to lose their jobs before, but this time feels final with the rise of "Artificial Intelligence" and the large investments into making sure it doesn't fail. We don't have reliable insight into how our economy is doing to even compare these two moments because our government in America is more concerned with enriching the wealthiest individuals and saying good luck to the rest of us. I have primarily worked in nonprofits/government jobs, but as Americans saw with the government shutdown and the consistent turn to conservative policy, cutting positions and treating your arm of public function as having a bottom line is the M.O. of those currently in power. So, are the people being laid off in traditional business going to find new positions? Does the job market even have enough current positions? Are employers being genuine in their effort to fill the open positions that they have?
Thoughts added on after: we saw similar issues when rust belt cities emerged, but unlike mining and industry sectors, the current layoffs are happening in sectors that are predominantly college educated. It used to be that getting a degree guaranteed you a certain amount of job security, that these jobs used a certain kind of creativity that a liberal arts education provided, but no more. Also speaks to how concentrated power and money in a certain kind of person that thrives in the wall street big businesses space leads to downfall and ruin because they fall for the same tricks and throw money at unproven technologies.
