Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, has warned that artificial intelligence is flattening recruitment of young people and proposed scrapping national insurance contributions to help those whose jobs are being wiped out by AI. Speaking at a press conference, Sunak said that bosses are privately acknowledging to him that recruitment of young people is flattening because of the rapid advancement of AI. He noted that many chief executives are saying that 'flat is the new up', according to major media reports. Sunak argued it is becoming increasingly difficult for young people to find employment in service sectors such as law, accountancy and the creative industries.
Sunak, who was appointed as an adviser to AI firm Anthropic and Microsoft last year, warned that concerns from graduates looking for entry level jobs are justified. He cautioned that you are 'more likely to lose your job to someone who is using AI than you are likely to lose your job to AI itself'. Sunak said: "There are reasons to be worried and think about the future. But we are able to do something about this." He added that "they're talking about this concept that they think they can continue to grow their businesses without having to significantly increase employment because they're starting to see how they can deploy AI."
To address the challenge, Sunak suggested gradually abolishing national insurance and replacing it with taxes on corporate profits. He argued that the current system creates a disincentive to hire people because employers pay national insurance contributions on top of wages, while AI agents incur no such cost. "When you employ a person you end up having, as a business or an organisation, you end up having to not just pay them their wages but having to pay them a significant incremental cost in all the National Insurance contributions and other employment costs that we put on the bill... If that same business is thinking about taking on an AI agent and just paying the cost of the software, it doesn't have to bear any of those costs. So that to me seems like an obvious area...we should look at," Sunak said. He also emphasised the importance of AI literacy, calling it "the fastest growing skill that employers are demanding on LinkedIn" and "almost the equivalent of the driving licence for the modern workforce." Sunak argued that the 'best protection for people' is to 'make sure that they have the confidence to use these new AI tools well'. He said: "That's why I think we do have to look at this issue very seriously and with purpose… We should be thinking about, well, how do we tip the balance in favour of AI being used in that positive way… to help people do their jobs better [rather than replacing them]."