San Diego County’s unemployment rate rose to its highest level since 2021 —  a staggering 4.7 percent at the start of the year. This is an increase from the 4.3 percent that was reported at the end of 2023. California sat at an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent for January 2024.  

Major losses in tourism, retail, professional and business services — which is common at the beginning of the year as holiday seasons close — each had a helping hand in increasing San Diego’s jobless rate.  

This report is concerning for a multitude of reasons. 

First, looking at various pieces of data, San Diego was ranked as the most expensive place to live in the U.S. for 2023 and 2024, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Between December 2023 and January 2024, non-farm employment in San Diego decreased by 23,400 for a total of over 1.5 million jobs, according to the California Employment Department. 

The county’s labor force — adults who either have a job or are actively looking for one was totaled to 1.59 million in January, said the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

Individuals experiencing homelessness also increased by 14 percent in 2023 according to the WeAllCount Point-in-Time Census conducted by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness. 

There’s a clear link between unemployment and homelessness. 

More specifically, non-profit organization Solutions for Change explained that “People experiencing homelessness are disproportionately impacted by unemployment and underemployment, but many want to work and can’t find or hold on to work.”  

And while communities struggle to find work, Nexford University predicted that artificial intelligence, also known as AI, will replace 85 million jobs worldwide by 2025 — making it further difficult to maintain and find work in America’s most expensive city.  

A 2016 report by the Executive Office of the President National Science Technology Council Committee on Technology warned that the use of AI could make some skills expendable, while others would be highly sought after to complement the use of machinery. 

There’s a risk of diminishing critical thinking skills while physical labor may become more essential, for example. 

The council additionally stated that lower-wage jobs would be the group most negatively affected by AI and that such advancements would increase the wage gap between education classes.  

Lastly, the report disclosed that the Government has several roles to play to ensure safety and fairness for the public. Adapting frameworks to encourage innovation and holding open conversations were a few of the proposed future preparations. 

However, if we’re less than two years out from OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT and three years from their DALL-E’s text-to-image model generator, and we’re already facing millions of job replacements within the next nine months, then the regulation protocols need to be revisited to ensure the survival of current and future generations.  

Investment banking company Goldman Sachs estimated that roughly two-thirds of U.S. occupations are exposed to some degree of AI automation in 2024 and for those that are exposed, “roughly a quarter to as much as half of their workload could be replaced” by AI.  

The creation of new jobs and the emergence of new occupations to offset any resulting displacement will thus be vital to San Diego and U.S. economic welfare. 

Much is still unknown about how AI will interact with our society. 

But, at the moment, the effects of artificial intelligence for San Diego’s labor force appears daunting.   

Editor’s note: Jessica Mills is a freelance writer for San Diego Community Newspaper Group.

Photo credit: Pixabay.com