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Tag: future of work

What happens when AI replaces entry-level jobs?

Posted on by Philip Webb

 And how people might still earn, contribute and stay afloat

As AI removes entry-level jobs, many people are left willing to work but locked out of paid employment. This article explores how contribution still happens and why new systems are needed to recognise it properly.

Many people are asking the same question right now, even if they’re phrasing it differently.

What happens when the jobs people used to start with no longer exist?

Entry-level roles are shrinking. Administrative work is being automated. Junior professional jobs are increasingly done by software. For young people and career changers, the ladder looks shorter… or is missing altogether.

Unfortunately this isn’t something to worry about in the future… it’s happening now.

And it raises a more uncomfortable question.

If paid work becomes harder to access, how do people earn, contribute and pay their bills?

AI is changing work faster than we can adapt

Artificial intelligence isn’t just making people more productive. In many cases, it’s removing the need for certain roles entirely.

Historically, technology displaced some jobs but created others. The concern now is speed and scale. Entire layers of routine and junior work are being removed faster than new pathways are appearing.

This leaves many people stuck:

  • qualified, but underused
  • willing to work, but locked out
  • contributing informally, but invisible to the system

Unemployment is the reality that we will be living in, but what is more concerning is how people will simply disengage from society. 

Governments can’t fund everything forever

When jobs disappear, the default response is often to look to government support.

But large-scale, long-term income replacement is expensive. Social welfare systems were not designed to absorb whole segments of the workforce permanently.

Even where support exists, it often:

  • strips people of dignity
  • discourages contribution
  • treats citizens as costs, not assets

That’s not a sustainable solution.

People don’t stop contributing when jobs disappear

One thing often gets missed in these conversations.

When paid work becomes scarce, people don’t suddenly become inactive.

They:

  • care for family members
  • support neighbours
  • volunteer
  • share skills
  • keep community organisations running

This work is real. It creates social stability. It reduces pressure on public services.

But it sits outside the wage economy, largely unmeasured and unrecognised.

That’s the gap we need to address.

A missing layer between work and welfare

If paid employment no longer guarantees participation for everyone, societies need an additional layer where it recognises contributions beyond the payroll system.

This is where the idea of a Community Economy becomes relevant.

Not as ideology.
As infrastructure.

A way of recognising, recording and eventually rewarding community contribution so that people remain economically and socially engaged, even when traditional work is unavailable.

What Investors in Community is building now

At Investors in Community (IIC), we’re focused on the practical foundations of that idea.

Right now, we provide a platform where people, charities and businesses connect around real community action. When someone gives time, skills, items or funding through the platform, that action is verified and recorded.

This creates Community Credits.

Community Credits are not wages.
They are not a substitute for employment.
They do not solve the problem overnight.

What they do provide is proof.

Proof that contribution happened.
Proof that effort exists beyond paid work.
Proof that communities are already producing value.

That proof matters if any future system is going to work.

Why the exchange comes later

The most important piece, the Community Credit Exchange, is still in development.

This is the mechanism that could allow verified community contribution to circulate and play a role in how people meet everyday needs.

But this only works if the groundwork is solid.

You can’t build an exchange without trust.
You can’t build trust without consistent data.
You can’t create data without systems that already work.

That’s why this is being built in stages.

Why businesses and sponsors have a role

Businesses are not separate from this challenge.

They are:

  • facing automation themselves
  • struggling to recruit and retain staff
  • under pressure to demonstrate social value
  • dependent on healthy, functioning communities

Supporting infrastructure that recognises contribution is long-term risk management.

Sponsors help fund the slow, careful work of building systems that may soon become essential for a majority of the population.

The question we need to answer

As AI reshapes work, the question isn’t whether people will still contribute.

They will.

The question is whether we build systems that recognise that contribution, or whether we allow large parts of the population to become economically invisible.

At Investors in Community, we’re choosing to build those systems carefully, practically and in the open.

Because if work alone can no longer guarantee participation, then contribution has to count in other ways too.

The world is getting scary – but it’s not all over yet.

Posted on by Emily Blake

Something, somewhere, is going wrong. Unemployment is predicted to get worse in 2026; the majority of adults see the cost of living as a major issue; and with all our recent Prime Ministers of the past 5 years receiving ever-lower approval ratings, we are living in times of anxiety and unrest.

When I left university, I knew I wanted to go into a role where I could make a difference, to make the most of my privilege of pursuing further education to help others. We hear that this is a growing sentiment among graduates – despite the increasing concerns over costs, new entrants into the workforce are focused on more than just the figure landing in their bank account at the end of the month. An increasing number of people now care about how their work makes them feel: not just striking a work-life balance, but how their work can bring a fulfilling life of its own.

I was lucky, but the graduate pool is growing, unemployment rates are creeping up, whole sectors are being replaced by new technologies. Most jobs are few and far between, let alone the jobs that can provide people with the sense of fulfilment that they desire. You may not feel any sympathy here – many people, if not most, struggle to find fulfilment in their role, but they get on with it, enduring the hours between 9-5, 5 days a week to keep themselves fed, watered, and sheltered.

But is this really something to encourage? To accept as the default? Is there not something going wrong in a system where people spend the majority of their lives working an unfulfilling job, simply to keep themselves alive? With more people set to lose their jobs in 2026, and many more being ushered into roles they dread returning to after the weekend, an alternative to our economic system has never been more vital. Now, with IIC, it’s also never been more achievable.

Imagine instead a world that tangibly rewards the good you do for others; a world in which your self-esteem and sense of purpose is derived not from how high up the ladder you can climb, but the value you’ve added to your community. An alternative world, where your achievements are not measured in incremental wage increases, but the volunteering that you did to support a lonely person, or the toys that you donated to a child born in poverty.

At Investors in Community, we are taking the steps to turn this vision into reality, using Community Credits™ as a vehicle. We are dedicated to creating a new economic system that encourages cooperation and community, rather than competition, by rewarding those who help others. With each act of kindness, each Community Credit earned can be spent – whether that be on the basics such as utility bills, or on treats, like cinema tickets.

We propose a self-contained economy, where you can earn and spend by going out into your community, picking up litter, helping rejuvenate green spaces. This is not just helping others; it’s uplifting the area you live in – it’s helping yourself. The Community Credits™ economy can bring fulfilment in our times of unrest, regeneration in times of decline, and solidarity in times of division. But most importantly, it is a beacon of hope for those left behind.

This is not just on individuals. Businesses – you have a role to play. Arguably, the most important of all. We know that you are trying to give back, and we know that you, too, are hit with rising costs keeping you up at night. The economy as we know it is not working for you, either. But a thriving community supports their businesses, it grows with them, not against them.

So if you’re a business, maybe a small one, maybe a big one, a struggling one or a thriving one – we ask you to join us. Come and take part in a system that rewards and values the good that you can create, not just the exponential profits you generate. Support and source other businesses that care about the world around them. Resist the trend in our crumbling communities of division and degeneration and be a building block in a new community – a new economy.