Froma Harrop, syndicated columnist

The big headlines about job losses tend to focus on the big employers. Layoffs at UPS, 48,000 — at Intel, 24,000. Amazon is cutting up to 30,000 workers, and Target, 1,800. These pink slips are being dropped largely on white-collar positions.

The thinking is that artificial intelligence will be able to handle much of the work now being done at desks. Dropping heavier workloads on those who remain seems to be another part of the plan.

AI is considered “intelligent” automation. In other words, it has cognitive abilities. That is not quite the same thing as robotics, which is “mechanical” automation.

But the robots have gotten really good — with the help of AI. Self-driving cars are robots, but their “brains” are powered by AI, which tells them how to steer, brake or accelerate. Now envision a job market in which human drivers are no longer needed.

As Gary Barnett, a New York real estate developer, told The Wall Street Journal, “What I would anticipate — I don’t know if it’s in 10 years or 20 years — is that there will be no drivers allowed.” Computer-controlled vehicles will cut down on traffic and emissions: “The city will be a much more pleasant place to live” assuming you’re not a human who makes a living behind a wheel.

These numbers are nine years old, but 30% of civilian jobs involve driving, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That comes roughly to tens of millions of U.S. jobs.

That driverless future has already hit the road. Waymo has robotaxis in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin. Driving decisions are made by lidar, radar, cameras, GPS and onboard AI.

Think of those Amazon delivery drivers. Amazon has started drone deliveries of some lighter packages. It hopes that “Prime Air” will transport 500 million packages by the end of the decade. Drones are already being used in the Phoenix area. What’s next? Flying porch pirates?

We’ll always need humans to grow and pick our crops, right? Not necessarily. Tech companies are inventing — and many farmers are now using sensors that monitor plant health. They locate areas that need more water or suffer too many pests. Robots can also fix the problem. We’re talking drones, autonomous tractors, internet-driven harvesters.

Much of this tech is good for the environment and helpful at a time when farm labor is hard to come by. But add these kinds of employment to the threatened white-collar and blue-collar jobs, and there’s a challenge for our national leadership should it choose to lead.

Donald Trump’s approach to dealing with these concerns is to ignore them. More to the point, he’s hiding the numbers. Trump fired the BLS commissioner who oversaw the jobs reports, after they revealed weak hiring. Her replacement immediately joined the president in attacking the accuracy of the reports themselves and has talked about no longer releasing monthly numbers.

However, private sources of such statistics are carrying on. Data from ADP Research and Revelio Labs speak of a job market that’s rapidly cooling.

The underlying economy also does not bode well for future job growth. As prices continue rising, consumer spending by all but the wealthiest Americans has been squeezed. Homebuyers are taking on riskier loans to afford a house. Spiraling national debt drives up interest rates.

Stocks seem to be doing well, but other countries’ indexes are doing better. The S&P 500 is up 11% this year but is ranked 66th in the world. The reason, according to Bloomberg News, is growing worry about America’s political and fiscal stability.

Numbers matter whether we know them or not. We’d better start thinking about future jobs.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM