{"id":697586,"date":"2026-01-15T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:08:09","slug":"sadiq-khan-to-urge-ministers-to-act-over-colossal-impact-of-ai-on-london-jobs-sadiq-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697586\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadiq Khan to urge ministers to act over \u2018colossal\u2019 impact of AI on London jobs | Sadiq Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sadiq Khan is to warn in a major speech that artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) could destroy swathes of jobs in London and \u201cusher in a new era of mass unemployment\u201d unless ministers act now.<\/p>\n

In his annual Mansion House speech, the London<\/a> mayor will say the capital is \u201cat the sharpest edge of change\u201d because of its reliance on white-collar workers in the finance and creative industries, and professional services such as law, accounting, consulting and marketing.<\/p>\n

The mayor will argue that \u201cwe have a moral, social and economic duty to act\u201d to ensure that new jobs are created to replace those that will disappear, with entry-level and junior jobs the first to go.<\/p>\n

In the speech on Thursday night, Khan will highlight research that suggests 70% of skills in the average job will have changed by 2030.<\/p>\n

However, he also sees huge potential benefits from AI for public services and productivity across the economy.<\/p>\n

When he addresses business leaders and bankers at Mansion House, the London mayor will say: \u201cAI could enable us to transform our public services, turbocharge productivity and tackle some of our most complex challenges,\u201d but used recklessly, will \u201cusher in a new era of mass unemployment\u201d. He will warn that the impact on the labour market will be \u201cnothing short of colossal\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he will say that there is a clear choice: \u201cseize the potential of AI and use it as a superpower for positive transformation and creation or surrender to it and sit back and watch as it becomes a weapon of mass destruction of jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Hall is launching a London taskforce on AI and the future of work, with expertise from the government, businesses and the AI sector, to assess the potential impact of the new technology on London\u2019s jobs market. It will also offer free AI training for Londoners.<\/p>\n

More than half of workers in London expect AI to affect their jobs in some way in the next 12 months, according to City Hall polling.<\/p>\n

Across the UK, up to 3m low-skilled jobs in trades, machine operations and admin roles could disappear by 2035<\/a> because of automation and AI, a report by the charity National Foundation for Educational Research found in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can shape this next technological revolution and, if we are bold in our efforts, ensure AI makes us richer, not poorer, stronger, not weaker, more connected and more confident, and more capable of building a fairer, safer and more prosperous London for everyone,\u201d Khan will say.<\/p>\n

He will argue the UK and others have been too slow to respond to new technology in the past and that the growth of social media has led to a youth mental health crisis, a surge in online abuse and a dangerous rise in misinformation.<\/p>\n

Separately, Susan Langley, major of the City of London, said on Thursday morning she had noticed that some finance workers were wary of coming to London from abroad because they worry about their safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, she told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme: \u201cThe City of London is one of the safest cities in the world. There\u2019s this perception that you\u2019re going to step out of your office and be swept away in a tsunami of crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s completely wrong. Competition for investment is really fierce at the moment, and I think any kind of unfounded negative sentiment that\u2019s being pushed out there really risks undermining the UK on the global stage, and we just can\u2019t let it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sadiq Khan is to warn in a major speech that artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy swathes of jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-697586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115899040022474547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}