In the storm of worry and confusion surrounding AI, job loss is one of its more ominous clouds. Sixty percent of U.S. workers now believe it will wipe out more jobs than it will create — emblematic of a growing concern over AI in the last few years.
Unlike the industrial revolution, this mass disruption is coming first for the climate-controlled cubicles of white-collar workers. Some sectors' entry-level roles, like in software engineering, are already in decline.
More people (including tech leaders) are saying: it’s a good time to be a plumber. The phrase ‘AI-proof’ is now commonly thrown around in recruitment slogans and social posts alike.
But the trades are not AI proof, according to Fred Voccola, CEO of Simpro Group, a firm providing management software for trade businesses, handling everything from technician dispatch to billing. He stresses that trade jobs are “one of the best avenues to pursue” right now — but no job is actually AI-proof.
Indeed, blue-collar jobs are widely considered more resistant to imminent impacts from the technology, but even construction and skilled trade roles are predicted to dramatically change over the next 15 years.
“I think [AI] is the biggest opportunity but also the biggest threat that we've seen as a species,” Voccola told Broadband Nation.
In his eyes, most employers will have no choice but to adopt it. From automation and cost cutting (beyond labor replacement) to insight and strategy tools, AI makes a huge difference for middle-class business owners, argued Voccola. Not integrating AI into every facet of the business means “you’re done, you’re disrupted and you’re the way of the dinosaur." But he believes how an organization adopts the technology will make all the difference — especially from the workers’ perspective.
“I think that employees have to be a lot more brutal about looking at who they work for,” he continued. “Even if the employer they're working for is really nice and they're good people, they care about the employees, if the employer is not AI first, then they're working for a company that will not be able to employ them much longer.”
But asking workers to scrutinize whether their employers are ‘AI-first’ is a tough ask, especially if they’re desperate for work. While certain white-collar sectors may have to brace for unavoidable impact, trade and construction workers have more power than they realize, according to Voccola.
“Right now in the trades, there's a lot of leverage that employees have. There's a shortage of skilled workers,” he explained. “I think the leverage [these] employees have will be even greater in the era of AI, because they don't want to work for a company that's quite frankly short-sighted and stupid.”
Adaptability is the only stability
Voccola’s macroeconomic take on AI isn't quite alarmist, but it is highly cautionary. He's blunt about the speed at which change is coming — and the fear that produces.
“People are scared,” he reflected. “Fear makes people freeze. Fear makes people stop embracing change.”
It's a fair and salient fear when such a small number of powerful corporations control AI's overall direction. But without some historic shift in wealth distribution norms — like universal basic income — panic won’t stop the need for paychecks.
Over the next several years, Voccola anticipates many skilled trade workers will have a unique leverage in job opportunities, and he encouraged them to not simply chase the highest bidder, but vet the company for its own propensity to adapt.
He contends that nearly all high-paying jobs that resist AI adoption won't last very long. “The interview process... needs to be one where the employee is going to be thinking: these people who are running this business, are they AI first?” he suggested. “Are they going to make this company continue to exist and succeed?”
In that same vein, Voccola reemphasized being a skilled trade worker will still inevitably require embracing and collaborating with this rapidly evolving technology.
“[Workers] need to understand and be very familiar with the ability of coexisting with enabling technology, or they will be unemployable," he warned.
Conceptually this isn’t new, many tradesfolk have told Broadband Nation that the broadband industry is not for people who don’t like change. But the speed of incoming transformation is something to quickly reckon with, even in blue-collar work, stressed Voccola — and the impacts of those who are displaced by AI will be felt by everyone.
“In the United States of America, the majority of revenue for our government comes from income taxes paid by white collar workers. If half of them are displaced, there's not enough time to catch up,” he said.
Voccola acknowledged all the good the technology can bring to industries like healthcare and energy, but the destabilization that cascades from mass middle-income taxpayers unable to find work sits at the core of his apprehension as he looks ahead.
"Let's say that things get really bad. And let's say social disruption, social stability, civic unrest, goes past the tipping point. You better be able to do sh** with your own two hands,” he mused with a wry, faintly fatalistic laugh.
However the transformation ultimately unfolds, Voccola said there’s never been a better time in recent history to lean into a skilled trade.
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