AI Is Fast Taking Over Jobs Making Choices Harder For Young People

18th August 2025

AI is expanding rapidly in almost every aspect of the jobs market from self service checkouts in supermarkets to all types of clerical work where some young people used to get their early employment.

The NEET category has been increasing recently.

Tackling NEETs (young people Not in Education, Employment or Training) depends not just on guidance, tracking, or support services, but also on whether there are enough new, suitable jobs being created for young people to move into. Without growth in entry-level roles, apprenticeships, or training-linked employment, the best support schemes can only go so far.

Job creation is being addressed by the UK and Scottish and UK Governments in a number of ways.

Scotland's Approach to Job Creation for Youth

Developing the Young Workforce (DYW)
The Scottish Government has set a target of every 16-24-year-old achieving a "positive destination" by 2026. This relies on schools, colleges, and employers co-designing opportunities — meaning employers actively create placements and apprenticeships rather than waiting for national programmes.

Green Jobs & Just Transition
Scotland's Just Transition plan channels investment into renewable energy, low-carbon transport, and sustainable construction. Part of this is earmarked for youth employment pathways — apprenticeships and internships in these growth sectors.

Third Sector Partnerships
Charities and community organisations (funded by £1.7m annually through DYW) help create supported job opportunities for harder-to-reach youth, often in local service projects.

National Job Creation and Youth Employment Schemes (UK)

Apprenticeships & Skills England
The UK Government is boosting apprenticeship places, with financial incentives for employers (e.g. £2,000 for construction apprenticeships) and stronger links between schools and employers. Skills England is tasked with ensuring training matches growth sectors (green jobs, tech, healthcare).

Subsidised Placements (Kickstart-style)
Through the Get Britain Working plan, local mayors and authorities are funded to create thousands of temporary but paid roles for young people who need work experience to progress.

Sector-based job growth: Policy is geared towards green energy (offshore wind, retrofitting housing), digital industries (AI, cybersecurity, fintech), and care/health services, all of which are expected to offer more entry-level roles over the next decade. Government-backed investment zones are also marketed as job growth hubs.

Place-Based and Regional Job Creation

Youth Guarantee Trailblazers
These are locally led programmes in eight regions, pairing jobseekers with real vacancies in growth industries. The idea is to give areas flexibility to create locally relevant jobs rather than one-size-fits-all schemes.

Mayoral Funding (£240m)
Metro mayors are using devolved funding to subsidise employers who take on young people, particularly SMEs that might otherwise struggle to create roles.

The Link Between Support and Job Creation

To reduce NEET rates, governments are effectively working on two levers at once:

Demand-side (jobs created)
Stimulating employers to offer new, accessible roles (through subsidies, regional investment, and sector growth strategies).

Supply-side (young people prepared)
Ensuring young people have the skills, guidance, and health/wellbeing support to take those jobs.

The risk, as commentators point out, is that if the economy isn't generating enough suitable entry-level jobs, NEET numbers could remain high even with good training and guidance systems.

Governments are trying to expand youth employment opportunities, but at the same time AI and automation are eroding or reshaping many of the very entry-level jobs young people traditionally rely on.

Where AI is reducing jobs

Routine clerical & admin roles
Data entry, basic back-office work, call centres, and some customer service functions are already being automated. These have historically been stepping-stone jobs for school leavers.

Retail & hospitality
Self-checkout systems, app-based ordering, and AI scheduling reduce the need for junior staff.

Junior professional work - law, finance, and marketing graduates would once have started in research or drafting roles that AI tools now partly cover.

These pressures fall disproportionately on young entrants, because first jobs are often where routine, low-autonomy work is concentrated.

AI oversight & support
Prompt engineering, data curation, content review, ethics and compliance.

Digital industries
Cyber security, software, AI tool development, data analytics.

Green economy jobs
Eenergy transition roles (installing solar, retrofitting housing, EV infrastructure) are less automatable and expected to grow.

Human-centric services
Health, social care, teaching assistants, creative sectors all rely on uniquely human skills where AI is a complement, not a substitute.

So the job creation strategy governments describe (green, digital, health) does align with areas less at risk of AI substitution.

Skills pivot – both UK and Scottish governments emphasise digital literacy and technical apprenticeships to help young people move into AI-complementary fields.

Career guidance – the shift to mandating exposure to apprenticeships and technical routes is in part an answer to automation risks.

Lifelong learning
Policies like Scotland's Community Learning & Development strategy and the UK's Skills England point to recognising that reskilling will be ongoing, not one-off.

Even with new jobs, transitional pain is real. AI will probably eliminate a net share of "starter jobs" in retail, admin, and routine services faster than new opportunities appear, creating a churn problem for under-25s. This helps explain the rising NEET numbers despite government guarantees: there may simply be fewer easy-entry jobs left, and the bar to first employment is higher.

Government job-creation strategies (green, digital, health, apprenticeships) target areas less exposed to AI automation. But because AI is hollowing out many entry-level jobs, young people face a tougher transition into the workforce.

The big policy question is whether investment in new industries can scale quickly enough — and whether career pathways are accessible to those without advanced qualifications.