Jobseekers thwarted by AI bots throwing out their CVs for being the 'wrong' age, says RUTH SUNDERLAND

See more This is Money on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Updated: 04:34 EDT, 27 July 2026 Job anxiety is hanging heavy in the sultry summer air. The desperation of being unable to find work is no longer confined to characters such as Yosser Hughes, the Liverpudlian tarmac-layer in TV drama Boys From The Blackstuff. His plea to ‘gizza job’ resonated in 1980s Britain, the decade when, according to Andy Burnham, the UK economy began to go wrong. Forty years on, the person whose life unravels when they lose their job is just as likely to be a formerly well-off female high achiever. Someone, perhaps, like metropolitan fashionista Stacey Duguid, who wrote a lacerating piece in this newspaper about her fruitless struggles to find work. Her experience struck a chord with midlife women who say they are being thwarted by AI bots throwing out their CVs for being the ‘wrong’ age and sex. The algorithms, of course, reflect and amplify human prejudice. In the 1980s, the decline of heavy industry brought thousands of job losses in mines, steelworks and factories, work that was mainly done by men. Anxiety: Job anxiety is hanging heavy in the sultry summer airWe were told the UK could thrive as a post-manufacturing, services-led economy, but today’s wave of job losses may well have a female face. AI is coming for service roles, and the research so far does suggest women are more vulnerable, because the back-office, part-time and mid-level admin positions they often occupy are those being replaced. The City of London Corporation investigated and found women working in tech and financial services are at greater risk of losing their jobs to AI than their male peers.Mid-life professional women do not have a monopoly on this misery: men also report age discrimination. The young, despite being AI natives, don’t have it all their own way, not with more than a million 16 to 24-year-olds categorised as NEET – or not in education, employment or training. No politician today would dare tell people without work to ‘get on their bike’, as Norman Tebbit did in the 1980s. But the problem of joblessness is often framed as an individual one for people to solve for themselves. Stacey Duguid describes a deep sense of personal shame about her struggles to find work, even while knowing she was caught up in economic forces far stronger than herself. With 1.7million people unemployed and another 9million economically inactive, Burnham needs to put jobs front and centre of everything his Government does.Perhaps he can do little about the global march of job-stealing AI, but he could choose to tackle the costs being heaped on employers. I wonder whether ministers realise the full impact of these. They should listen to the people running businesses, such as Tim Martin, the founder and chairman of the Wetherspoons pub chain, who has said he is facing an extra £60million a year in employment costs and has issued four profit warnings this year.Christopher Nieper, who runs the David Nieper fashion firm in Derbyshire, calculates that the cost of employing an 18 to 20-year-old in his factory has risen more than 100 per cent in the past ten years. For a worker aged 21 and above, the bill is up by 86 per cent. Employers simply cannot take this pain indefinitely. Businesses are not all nests of evil capitalism, deserving of being taxed to oblivion. Good companies create jobs, support communities and help to create places where people can live good lives. The new Labour administration needs to grasp that. DIY INVESTING PLATFORMSAJ BellAJ BellEasy investing and ready-made portfoliosHargreaves LansdownHargreaves LansdownFree fund dealing and investment ideasinteractive investorinteractive investorFlat-fee investing from £4.99 per monthFreetradeFreetradeInvesting Isa now free on basic planTrading 212Trading 212Free share dealing and no account feeAffiliate links: If you take out a product This is Money may earn a commission. These deals are chosen by our editorial team, as we think they are worth highlighting. This does not affect our editorial independence.Compare the best investing account for you