I keep raising the alarm bell about AI removing jobs, instead of enhancing them; and companies improving profits but workers losing their wages. I’m often told: there’s no evidence of AI disrupting the labour market. We have to shape AI in the interests of workers and the UK economy and not just wait to see what happens - these changes are coming whether we like it or not. We need to be both pro-tech and pro-worker. If too many workers lose their jobs and are unable to find alternative work to maintain their lifestyles we’ll have very serious societal problems to deal with.
Financial Times
@FT
Oct 7
FT Exclusive: The bank is in a ‘consultation period’ regarding proposed cuts described as ‘deep, wide and brutal’, with almost entire teams at risk of redundancy. ft.trib.al/vyVEbSo

Oct 7, 2026 · 10:24 AM UTC

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Replying to @darrenpjones
Don't always agree with Darren, but I think he's spot on here that a major disruption is not only coming, but has arrived. I also agree the societal impact is going to be enormous.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
No, we need to allow the market to operate . Productivity is stagnant and moving to flatter, more AI centric operating models will fix that, but there will be a transition.
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Replying to @darrenpjones @AliKh1886
What do you suggest?
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Companies are increasing profits in the short term. What happens when all the workers who pay the tax burden and keep the economy moving by buying goods and services not only stops purchasing and paying the tax, but starts turning to the government for welfare?
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Replying to @darrenpjones
It's not AI that does it, whether companies retrain their workforce depends on the labour laws among other things. So it is not only the employers/deployers and the developers, it's you, the legislators, who have moral agency here too.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Every major technology wave has done the same and still produced net gains in jobs, wages and living standards. It's the short-term pinch that's hard to swallow right now, where we must focus on upskilling/reskilling and education to work with these tools, not against them.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Darren please get @andyburnham to fulfil his promises to @ExcludedUK and instigate a plan to help us recover. You spoke with me on zoom during the pandemic about this. And also with @ExcludedFighter at conference last week. Remind him duty of candour. @labourpress @UKLabour
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Replying to @darrenpjones
And yet Burnham is doing Tik Tok’s on disingenuous promises beyond the next election and ignoring the dangers of AI and current issues
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Well the public sector must be about to trim thousands of jobs too then? Imagine the savings to the taxpayer
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Replying to @darrenpjones
You screwed it by giving away all the manual jobs away to visa worker. Jobs that have had their wages kept artificially low. Jobs that could've been a safety net for AI losses. You're a day late and a dollar short as usual.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
For every worker that they fire that company’s tax should go up by the amount of tax that worker was paying. You wanna fire someone for AI? You can pay their taxes then
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Just a few thoughts - Labour has made employing people incredibly difficult and expensive (socialism) Ai has bots that can do all the mouse jobs with ease for a fraction of the cost … maybe try less socialism as a solution
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Replying to @darrenpjones
These companies always put profits and shareholders above workers. The same approach will be taken with AI. They don't care about workers or the impact of redundancies on society. Workers are a high-level cost to the business, in which they will look to find ways to cut.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
People lose jobs to AI and they have no income to spend on hospitality, trade to improve their house, holidays and on and on. The ripple effect will decimate us.
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Replying to @darrenpjones @jemmm85517813
Perhaps if you hadn’t over taxed, increased the cost of energy bills and put regulatory burdens on businesses we might have growth and more jobs.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Why don't you start a company and employ those people Darren? Lead by example. Be the change.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
The "no evidence" line survives because nobody counts it. Every UK layoff of 20+ already needs an HR1 notice with a stated reason. Make "AI/automation" an explicit reason and publish the monthly totals. Then this stops being an argument and becomes a number
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Service sector jobs are now as vulnerable as manufacturing jobs in the 1960s to 1980s One can rail against the reality but far better to foster growth, the clue to the future may lie in the past
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Great let me know when you’ll be rolling out Ai to massively reduce the taxpayer funded always expanding Civil Service. I’ll wait…
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Replying to @darrenpjones
There's just so many routes into societal collapse these days, what a time to be alive.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Darren, companies are under no obligation to employ humans. It’s why you as a government need to ensure policies incentivise them to do so.. otherwise you will have to. And that is a disastrous prospect as it is private enterprise that pays your budget down. Do you see now?
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Most Businesses have hungry Shareholders that demand returns and don’t really care about faceless employees, hence will be fully behind any cost savings that AI can be deliver. That’s Business !
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Replying to @darrenpjones
You can't suddenly pretend to care about jobs when you spend the rest of your days undermining the very people who can create them. It's painful to listen to.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
And all these companies making people redundant will end up with no customers. Seems well thought through
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Replace the civil service with SI (its not AI any more, didn't you get the memo?), and stop taxing the fuck out of everyone. There. Problem solved.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Yes, we need to decide what jobs humans really cant do and then decide what aspects of those we want AI to help with. E makls ain't it. We aren't helpless in the face of AI we just need to assert ourselves against the tech companies and tech bros.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Hair-raising, whether costing jobs or not, is solicitors reading AI summaries of the law, not the law itself. And the general public thinking if they've read an AI summary, they've understood it and don't need a solicitor. From my own experience.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
The first step is surely to mandate companies that x% of cost saving efficiency from the permanent removal of the role, should be paid out as redundancy. Even a small % would be worth a lot. Need to get on top of this @andyburnham
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Appreciate this but I still think government is not taking it seriously enough. Do we have plans for what to do if AI-induced unemployment reaches 30-50%? How would people pay their rent?
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Great. We can axe public sector jobs and slash spending.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
That would have been useful when you were basically the right hand man to the PM. You’ve now realised that the US has the models. The profits and cost savings will go to the US. The UK can’t tax those profits and can’t tax those who lose their jobs here either….. we’re done.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
AI will disrupt jobs. There is absolutely no avoiding that. Any attempts to protect ourselves from this will only cripple this country completely, especially when other global adopters begin drastically outcompeting us. We need far better solutions than mere resistance.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
Labour are as wedded to the whims of the marketplace as any Tory government I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. Parliament is a tool of the moneyed classes as we can see with decaying public services, increased poverty and attacks on any kind of benefit system.
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Replying to @darrenpjones @connoraxiotes
You're right that AI's gains have to reach workers, not just profits. What would you want a firm to show before cutting whole teams? One idea: share the productivity gains through paid retraining and shorter hours, so AI gives people time back instead of taking jobs away.
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Replying to @darrenpjones @Mistymaria55
I think the penny is beginning to drop. But the genie is out of the bottle. No going back. AI will destroy most jobs - this is inevitable. The focus now should be how do we replace workers income. Tech tax and UBI should be a focus of debate and how we can get there.
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Replying to @darrenpjones
And serious financial problems! Who is going to buy any goods that are produced if most are in benefits that have been reduced due to the increase in job losses
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