Editorial
The release of the generative AI tool DeepSeek caused a stock market correction that added to the uncertainty surrounding the potential impact of AI on the labor market.
Countless attempts have been made over the last decade or so to estimate the impact of AI and automation on jobs. The World Economic Forum added its voice to the melee at the start of 2025, estimating that hundreds of millions of jobs will be affected, with new jobs created at a similar lick to those being destroyed.
AI technology will certainly impact the way we work. How it does that — and how significant the impact will be — remains to be seen. As AI reshapes industries, workers will need to navigate more fluid career paths, where retraining and adaptability become as important as traditional experience.
Instead of People Moving to Jobs, Jobs Come to People
In “The Technology Trap,” Oxford University’s Carl Frey argues that previous industrial revolutions have been so destructive due to our failure to help displaced workers transition into jobs with promising futures. One of his proposed solutions is to provide mobility vouchers to help people physically move to areas where employment prospects are rosier.
Unfortunately, geographical mobility isn’t always an option. Research from the University of York found that people from working-class backgrounds face limitations in moving to more prosperous areas and are less likely to physically relocate for new employment opportunities, which affects their access to high-paying jobs.
Research from the University of Connecticut shows that proximity of friends and family also plays an important role in people choosing to remain in place.
At the 2025 Global Labor Market Conference, Frey argued that remote work could play a crucial role in overcoming this gap, by allowing jobs to come to people, rather than requiring them to go to jobs. He said that as individuals seek ways to navigate employment challenges, remote work has emerged as a powerful tool for maintaining employment stability and facilitating career transitions.
By offering flexibility, expanding access to job opportunities and enabling skill development, remote work could help individuals adapt to career disruptions more effectively.
"Remote work breaks down geographical barriers, giving people access to a wider range of opportunities that might have been out of reach in a traditional office setting," he said.
Broadening Access to Jobs
A key advantage of remote work is that it allows employers to tap into a broader pool of candidates while opening job opportunities for those seeking employment. Gaining access to more job postings allows workers to overcome some of the socioeconomic barriers that might have restricted physical mobility.
For instance, professionals who lose their jobs due to local economic downturns or industry shifts can now access a global job market. The economic conditions of their immediate surroundings no longer constrain them, and can apply for roles in regions with higher demand for their skills.
This increased access to opportunities is particularly beneficial for those from disadvantaged backgrounds who may lack the financial resources to move for work.
Making the Transition
If that sounds simplistic, it undoubtedly is. We might justifiably ask how easy it is to transition to new careers even when opportunities avail themselves. After all, it risks the kind of ridicule that followed a 2020 UK government promotion suggesting a ballerina could retrain as a coder.
However, research from the London School of Economics suggests things might not be as bleak as we fear. The researchers examined the way technology affected the employment and career earnings of Swedish workers between 1985 and 2013 and found that the potential losses are relatively modest, with a 2% to 5% decline in earnings and a 1% to 2% decline in employment.
This suggests that there is a reasonable degree of mobility between livelihoods, with people able to offset the decline in their original income by moving into new fields that are less affected by technology.
This perhaps goes some way toward explaining why those in the lowest earning percentiles have been most heavily affected by the introduction of technology. According to the research, these workers typically saw an 8% to 11% decline in their career incomes. While they were less likely to remain in their original occupation than higher earners, they were also less effective at finding new forms of work, or at least new forms of work that paid a comparable rate.
Remote Work Is Only a Partial Answer
All this hints at the uneasy suggestion that remote work is the answer. Obviously, many roles cannot be performed remotely. For instance, data from recruitment website Indeed shows that the biggest growth in roles in 2025 is in areas such as healthcare, construction and education, all of which are site specific. These roles also include licensing and qualification barriers that prevent easy transition.
Another elephant in the room is the well-publicized kickback against remote work by employers over the past year, with Amazon, Google and JPMorgan leading the charge among a growing number of organizations issuing return-to-office mandates. This tethers workers to location at least to the extent that they need to be commutable for a few days a week.
Remote work offers a meaningful but incomplete solution to the labor market disruptions caused by AI. While it expands access to opportunities and reduces reliance on physical mobility, its limitations, such as its incompatibility with many industries and corporate pushback, suggest that we need a more multi-faceted approach.
For those where location matters, there is also help at hand. Research suggests that workers who invest in cognitive-abstract skills, such as those developed through apprenticeships, experience sustained wage growth. As AI disrupts routine-manual jobs, similar training programs may be critical in helping workers transition to more resilient careers.
This approach could also assist remote workers, with digital apprenticeships adopting a similar model to help people transition into new careers that can be performed regardless of location. Google’s Digital Apprenticeship is a good example of such an approach.
The generative AI disruption won’t happen overnight. LSE research shows that change tends to happen much more gradually. This means whatever the approach people take to adapt, they will likely have a bit of time to do so.
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Read more about the changing world of work:
- The Future of Work Can't Be a Return to the Past — With the dust from the pandemic settled, the push to return to pre-pandemic norms is causing employee expectations and employer mandates to clash.
- The Global Ripple Effect: AI's Far-Reaching Implications — A three-part series on AI’s impact on the office, strategy and society. Part three: how AI will influence international relations, economies and more.
- The Sweet Spot for AI Disruption — If your job falls in the intersection of four criteria, it's ripe for AI disruption. Luckily, enterprises are often slow to adopt tech, so it buys some time.
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