The Real Workforce Crisis Isn’t AI, It’s Us
- Regina Dyerly, SHRBP, PHR
- Dec 30, 2025
- 4 min read
The Real Workforce
Crisis Isn’t AI, It’s Us America’s demographic decline, talent gaps, and AI’s rise reveal a future of work defined by scarcity, not surplus.
By:
Regina Dyerly, sHRBP, PHR
Partner / Chief Operating Officer | Vida HR
A Tale of Two Futures
At Italian Tech Week in the beginning of October 2025, Jeff Bezos told the audience,
“I don’t see how anybody can be discouraged who is alive right now.”
He envisions a future where millions of people live in space by 2045, robots handle the commute, and human civilization reaches “civilizational abundance.”
Sam Altman predicts today’s college graduates will soon hold “super well-paid jobs in space.” Elon Musk thinks humans could be living on Mars by 2028.
On the other hand, a simpler take offers :
“Space? We have a lot to do here on Earth.”
That single line captures the tension perfectly. While tech leaders debate whether AI will usher in utopia or extinction, those of us managing the actual workforce are grappling with something much more immediate: a human shortage here on Earth.
The People Shortage Is Already Here
America’s problem isn’t theoretical. It’s arithmetic. Birth rates have fallen below replacement levels for more than a decade. Baby boomers are retiring faster than younger workers can replace them. Immigration, the traditional offset, is constrained by politics.
The result? Fewer workers, slower growth, and shrinking tax revenues. Hospitals, classrooms, and construction sites are struggling to fill roles. This isn’t a temporary skills gap; it’s a demographic cliff.
But there’s another, quieter truth behind the “shortage” narrative. Millions of Americans are still sidelined. Nearly two million people have been unemployed for more than six months, a figure that has barely moved despite years of hiring demand. These are people who have applied, been ghosted, aged out, burned out, or simply lost hope. If the economy truly cannot find workers, it also cannot afford to keep wasting them.
AI: The Help and the Hype
Artificial intelligence is the modern-day plough, a tool that promises to increase abundance. And Bezos isn’t wrong that technological leaps historically expand opportunity.
AI can absolutely increase capacity:
It automates repetitive work.
It enhances productivity per worker.
It supports overburdened sectors like healthcare and compliance.
But here’s the catch: AI doesn’t replace people; it replaces tasks. Robots can do your data entry, but they can’t pay taxes, raise children, or care for aging parents. They don’t buy homes, mentor employees, or participate in communities.
AI can help us do more with fewer hands, but it can’t solve the deeper issue: a society with fewer hands to begin with, and too many already idle on the sidelines.
Rebuilding the Talent Pipeline Starts Earlier
One of the most overlooked workforce challenges is the growing number of young people who are not engaged in either education or work.
Across the U.S., a meaningful share of individuals ages 16–24 are disconnected from traditional pathways into the labor market.
Some left school without a clear alternative. Others entered early jobs that offered little training or progression. Many experienced disrupted starts during the pandemic, when internships vanished and entry-level roles were reduced or eliminated.
This is not a motivation problem. It is a pipeline problem.
When entry-level roles require experience, when internships are unpaid, or when career paths are unclear, young workers do not fail the system. The system fails to absorb them.
For employers, this represents a critical opportunity. Paid internships, apprenticeships, skills-based hiring, and flexible early-career roles can rebuild the first rung of the ladder and create a sustainable talent pipeline over time.
If we want to solve long-term labor scarcity, we cannot focus only on replacing retiring workers. We have to re-engage the generation meant to replace them.
Balancing the Equation: Humans and Machines
If the tech billionaires are right, humanity’s future may indeed involve space colonies, robot commuters, and two-day work weeks. But here on Earth, we have a more urgent mission: sustaining the workforce that keeps civilization functioning.
For business and HR leaders, that means:
Use AI to amplify, not replace. Let automation handle the tedious so humans can focus on empathy, creativity, and strategy.
Invest in midlife reskilling. Experience is a renewable resource. Teach people to work with AI, not against it.
Redesign work for scarcity. Build roles and processes that assume leaner teams, cross-train employees, streamline decision-making, and focus on the work that matters most.
Rebuild early-career on-ramps. Create paid internships, apprenticeships, and training roles that prioritize potential over polish.
Re-engage sidelined workers of all ages. Design roles and processes that make it easier to return, retrain, and stay.
The Bottom Line
AI may take us to Mars someday, but the real crisis is right here on Earth.
We’re running out of people, not ideas, not technology, not ambition, but actual human beings to keep the economy running.
So while billionaires dream of cosmic abundance, the rest of us need to focus on building sustainable abundance here.
Because civilization doesn’t thrive on invention alone; it thrives on people.
The Real Workforce Crisis Isn’t AI, It’s Us