We keep telling people not to worry about AI because technology has always created new jobs.

That's true. But it's missing something important.

The steam engine created new jobs. Electricity created new jobs. The internet created new jobs. But the people who lost their old jobs didn't automatically get the new ones. Sometimes they did. Often they didn't. Especially the older ones. Especially the ones in the wrong city at the wrong time.

Right now, companies aren't announcing mass layoffs. They're just hiring fewer people.

Smaller teams. Slower backfills. A manager who used to need six people now needs four. That doesn't make headlines. It just quietly changes who gets hired and who doesn't.

There's also a pipeline problem; junior roles are shrinking because AI handles a lot of that work cheaply. But junior roles are where senior people come from.

If you cut the entry point, you don't just lose junior workers. You lose the next generation of experienced ones too.

The historical pattern probably holds. New jobs will appear. The economy will likely absorb the disruption.

The real question isn't whether jobs exist in ten years. It's whether the people who are working today are the ones who get them.