Labor Day 2025 comes at a time of great uncertainty in the job market, especially in the high-paying white-collar sector. The threat is coming from artificial intelligence as companies look to become more efficient by employing fewer human workers.
Now, it may be those working in blue-collar jobs who may be more resilient in an AI-driven world.
At Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, they specialize in teaching hands-on trade skills using the latest technology to prepare young people for the workforce. But Jeff Andre, who teaches in the school’s Process Technology program, says the tech can only do so much.
“You can’t build a machine that can think like a human, act like a human, or look out for each other like humans can,” he said. “You need people to operate that.”
But thinking like a human is exactly what Silicon Valley is trying to get machines to do. And there is a mad race to see how much of it can be put into various companies’ workflow. Artificial intelligence is replacing human workers with computer-generated assistants known in the business as “agents.”
“We’re now providing digital workers, you know, digital labor. And that is, like, the huge awakening that this is a new, exciting world,” said Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff.
Appearing on the Logan Bartlett podcast, he talked about the impact of AI on his own labor pool.
“As an example of that, look at engineering,” said Benioff. “I think in engineering this year at Salesforce, we’re seriously debating, maybe we aren’t going to hire anybody this year because we have seen such incredible productivity gains because of the agents that work side-by-side with our engineers.”
That may be exciting for Benioff, but for students studying engineering, not so much. It’s becoming harder and harder for graduates of prestigious universities to find work at all. Michael Bernick is a workforce consultant for the SF firm Duane and Morris and former head of California’s Employment Development Department.
He points out the grim statistic that more than half of college graduates in the state are currently working in jobs that don’t require a college degree. And Bernick said it is white-collar professionals who will be most threatened by the rise of AI.
“The narrative of past Labor Days, over the past 50 years, has almost entirely been one of our blue-collar decline,” he said. “Those jobs are making a comeback. And the important thing about those jobs is that they can’t be replaced by AI.”
For a long time, the State has steered students to four-year universities, in some ways stigmatizing community colleges and trade schools.
“The problem is still, I think, the prejudice of many people against blue-collar jobs,” said Bernick, “even though these jobs provide more valuable, direct, helpful services to people than many other jobs.”
Bernick blames what he calls the “Education-Industrial Complex.” But now it looks like those who learn and teach an actual trade skill may be getting the last laugh.
“We’re really trying to reach people of all ages right now to say, you don’t have to sign up for a four-year school if that’s not your thing,” said Jeff Andre. “Learn a trade. Learn a skill. Because if you do learn a trade or a skill, you can take it anywhere.”
Since the pandemic, there have been a number of forces driving the loss of jobs. AI is only one of them. But that technology is just starting to add its influence, making the ability to work with your hands a pretty valuable insurance policy in an uncertain world.