I don't think it's AI primarily, but rather AI is being used as a justification and a blame, and what's a better blame than this new trend that will last years and nothing can be done about it? I think it's just companies' greed, another excuse to lower the wages more and/or use ones who are ok with lower wages. It also has to do with procurement that's already using AI to process applications, with all the negative impacts this will have. I also did notice something when it comes to the job market: mostly those who are suffering are men, not women. I initially thought maybe because of the nature of the jobs, but that wasn't the case. Looking around on LinkedIn, a lot of women are doing product/project management jobs, analytics, business-related roles, even HR and procurement aren't impacted, and I have yet to see a single woman personally or online that was let go because of AI, even jobs in legal work, administration work -none of them are impacted that much. Meanwhile, I personally know several engineers (not software engineers) who are jobless with years of experience, and a LOT of software programmers too! I was discussing this with a friend and he also brought up a new term, "boomers' harems," as in, managers who are mostly old men prefer to hire young women now, and he did support his claim with many examples of fresh graduate girls that are working as engineers in aerospace or similar industries already, and their male classmates are still looking around.

So in conclusion, while AI does have an impact, personally if I would quantify it, it probably won't exceed 25% of the issue. Other factors make up the rest, but everyone is distracted by AI for all sorts of reasons.

Boomer harems lol that’s a new one on me but undoubtedly a thing.

My whole career in the UK I’ve noticed a similar thing in HR harems - in many places, particularly recruitment companies but it’s common everywhere, 90%-100% of the HR staff are women who then employ more and more women over men while having a generally poor understanding of the requirements for a role. I can’t help but feel like a group of women will have a natural disposition for adding extra women rather than men, while prioritising communication and networking over competencies like creative thinking, problem solving, generalism, and self-starting.