Issue No. 3 | More Jobs Will Change. Are You Ready?
Hey,
I landed back in London last week — straight from Sri Lanka.
I opened the news.
UK unemployment is at its highest in nearly five years. Youth unemployment is the highest in the EU.
AI isn't the only cause. Economic policy. Business cycles. Demographics all play a role.
But technology is accelerating something that was already in motion. And the people feeling it first are the ones who can least afford to.
So this week I want to talk about what I think this actually means — and what you can do about it.
Shift is Underway
We don't need to speculate about which professions are at risk.
The signals are already there.
Consulting. Legal. Finance. Any role where the core task is processing information, analysis, and producing recommendations.
These won't disappear overnight. But they're fragmenting. Compressing. The entry points are narrowing. The economics are weakening.
Junior roles that used to exist as training grounds — the analyst position, the research assistant, the junior consultant — are the first to go. Not because companies don't need that work done. But because AI can now do much of it faster and cheaper.
That's what makes the youth unemployment figure so concerning.
It's not just that there are fewer jobs. It's that the traditional pathway — get the degree, get the entry-level role, build experience, climb — is getting disrupted at its very first step.
Entry Career: The Entry Gate is Narrowing
First, your degree isn't wasted. Whatever you studied, build something real.
How to think critically. How to research. How to communicate and ask the right questions. How to learn fast.
Those capabilities don't expire.
But the honest truth is this: the entry-level landscape is getting harder. And waiting for it to normalise is not a strategy.
The professionals who will move fastest right now are the ones who embrace what's changing rather than resist it.
That means getting AI-literate — not as a technical expert, but as a confident user. Understand what the tools are. What they can do. Use them at speed. Build a portfolio of work that shows judgment, not just execution.
You don't have deep domain expertise yet. That's fine.
What you have is something mid-career professionals often struggle with: the ability to move fast, adapt quickly, and learn without the psychological weight of unlearning old ways.
That nimbleness is an asset. Use it deliberately.
Mid-Career: Protect your Moat
You have something early career professionals don't: years of judgment, domain expertise, and relationships built on trust.
That's your moat. But only if you protect it.
Here's a practical exercise worth doing this week.
Write down everything you do in a typical working week. Every task. Every meeting. Every deliverable.
Then split it into two columns.
Execution — research, summarising, drafting, formatting, analysing, reporting.
Judgment — strategic decisions, client relationships, navigating complexity, reading situations, making calls with incomplete information.
In most knowledge roles, a significant portion of the work sits in the first column. And that's exactly where AI is moving fastest.
The question isn't whether that work will change. It will.
The question is whether you're doubling down on the second column — and using AI to handle the first so you can spend more time on the work that actually requires you.
This isn't about learning every new tool. It's about understanding AI well enough to direct it. To use it as leverage. To amplify your judgment rather than compete with it.
The mid-career professionals who thrive in the next decade won't be the ones who resisted AI the longest.
They'll be the ones who used it to do more of what only humans can do.
The Reality People Avoid
Unemployment will most likely rise before it stabilises.
That's uncomfortable, but I think we all deserve a straight answer rather than reassurance that everything will be fine.
What I do believe — genuinely — is that the people who approach this with agency will be in a fundamentally different position to those who wait and see.
Agency means auditing your skills. Getting AI-literate at whatever career stage you're at. Doubling down on the capabilities that travel. And staying adaptable enough to reposition when the format of your work changes.
The map most people are using was drawn for a more stable world.
But the capabilities you've built are more portable than you think.
So here's what I'm sitting with this week:
What's the one thing you could do in the next 30 days to move from the execution side of your work to the judgment side?
Hit reply. I read everything.
— Gaziza