Workers Brace For AI’s Impact On Louisiana Job Market

You'd think after all those sci-fi movies we grew up with, we'd have seen this coming a mile away. You would think we’d be ready.

But you would be dead wrong.

This whole Artificial Intelligence, or AI, thing isn't some future fantasy anymore. It's here. It’s happening right now, and it's about to change everything about how we make a living here in Louisiana.

Studies show the numbers that should have EVERY American concerned, especially Louisiana residents. We're not talking about a few robots on a factory line...we're staring down the barrel of a change that could vaporize 300 million jobs around the world, including over 100 million in America. For us here in the Shreveport-Bossier City area, this shouldn't be a headline you just scroll past. This is a five-alarm fire, and it's burning its way straight toward our friends, our families, and our futures.

Louisiana Office Jobs Are At High Risk Of AI Replacement

Remember what they always told us? Go to college, get a good degree, and land a safe job. That was the American Dream. Well, that dream is turning into a nightmare, because the very thing we thought made those jobs safe...the thinking, the writing, the analyzing...is exactly what this new AI is designed to do, only cheaper.

If your daily drive takes you to an office building downtown, listen up. The new data is just brutal. A jaw-dropping 44% of all the tasks done in law firms can now be automated. Think about all the paralegals and legal assistants we know....their whole job is built on sorting through mountains of information, something an AI without having to have health insurance.

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Then it gets worse. The big banks are openly planning to slash 200,000 jobs in the next couple of years. The financial modeling that used to be a golden ticket for a business school grad? It’s now a task an algorithm can handle, and you don't need to provide the AI with any PTO.

This isn't a drill. The data shows that a third of all business tasks are already being done by machines. While we’ve been busy living our lives, the game has been changing under our noses. Just look at the tech world...the very people who built this stuff are getting canned. Nearly 78,000 tech jobs were cut in the first half of this year alone, with the companies flat-out admitting it was because of AI.

The Louisiana Hit List: Who's Next?

So who in our community needs to be looking over their shoulder? EVERYONE. When you break down what this AI is really, really good at, there are "low hanging" fruit type jobs that will go first. These are the careers of our neighbors, our friends, and maybe even you.

-Paralegals & Legal Assistants: All that reading and summarizing? It's tailor-made for AI.

-Bookkeepers & Accountants: The routine work of crunching numbers and tracking expenses is a prime target for automation.

-Customer Service Reps: You know that chatbot you talked to last week? Soon, you won't be able to tell the difference, and companies are noticing.

-Data Entry Clerks: This one's pretty much over. An AI doesn't make typos and it doesn't take breaks.

-Graphic Designers & Writers: The creative jobs we thought were untouchable aren't. AI can now whip up logos, website copy, and social media posts in a flash.

-Coders & Programmers: In a wild twist, AI is getting so good at writing code that it's putting its own creators in a tough spot.

-Market Research Analysts: The ability to spot a trend in a sea of data is what AI was born to do.

The human beings currently doing these jobs are viewed as nothing more that expenses to companies. These people will be replaced by machines for the sake of the bottom line faster that it takes to turn the AI server on.

The College Degree Twist Is a Gut Punch For Louisiana

Here’s the part that will really make you angry. We all bought into the idea that a college degree was our armor. It was the one thing that would protect us. Well, it turns out that armor is made of paper. According to the data, workers with a bachelor's degree are now more at risk than anyone. With more education comes higher pay scales, which will be the first targets companies will look to eliminate.

Let that sink in. We sent our kids to LSU, to Louisiana Tech, to LSUS, loading them up with debt...and promises of a better life. Now they get throws into a job market where their expensive degree makes them a bigger target. You can feel the anxiety in the air. Young folks are over 129% more likely to fear their job will disappear than older workers. They see the writing on the wall.

This isn't some problem for ten years down the road. It's happening right now. About 30% of U.S. companies have already started swapping out human beings for AI. It's a quiet, invisible revolution happening in offices and on spreadsheets, and it’s about to hit our community like a hurricane.

Louisiana: AI Is Coming For Trade Jobs Too

If the Louisiana workforce is about to be dismantled, what comes next? We saw what happened when Wall Street took apart American manufacturing in the 80s and 90s, and the hole it left in the Louisiana economy (especially in places like Shreveport). If that was a shotgun to the economy, AI is the nuclear bomb.

No job is safe, as long as it costs money to pay the person doing it. Seriously, not even plumbers and mechanics on the scale we have now.

Soon, AI will allow large companies to unleash entry-level plumbers and mechanics, who cost them substantially less, and will be sending them out with AI driven "toolboxes" that will serve has Youtube tutorials on steroids. The new version of a plumber will input the issue diagnosis and type of home, and will get a step-by-step guide to the fix. Gone are the days have needing experience, now its about who will work for the least.

This can be applied to all trades. If you get good at it, and feel like you're worth more, the machines are going to empower anyone willing to do the physical part for less. Which is exactly what shareholders want.

What Happens After AI Takes Our Jobs?

So when the jobs are either gone, or wages crushed by AI applications, where will anyone get money?

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Remember the concept of Universal Basic Income, or UBI? Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang brought it to the nation's attention in 2020, and some cities (like Shreveport) actually dabbled in it. But now, the smartest business and government minds in academia are starting to point to UBI as the only way to avoid society's collapse under AI infrastructure.

Henry Ford paid his workers $5 a day in 1914, or about $162 in 2025 wages. That's' $20.25 an hour for his general labor workforce. Didn't need a degree, could just show up, and put pieces together on the assembly line.

In fact, Ford wanted to pay more, but was sued by the Dodge brothers to keep pay low. That lawsuit went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where the court ruled that the shareholders are more important than the workers...a principal still enforced today.

So eliminating jobs/humans in favor of cheaper AI is actually legally required for publicly traded companies. Meaning there has to be a legal safety net.

If the government wants to make sure hundreds-of-millions of Americans can afford their homes, food, and the trinkets that are supposed to keep the American economy moving, they're going to have to pay. The government is likely going to need to create a UBI program for all Americans, because there aren't going to be enough shifts at Taco Bell to keep all of America employed. Especially if all of America can't afford Taco Bell.

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Where will the UBI money come from? Its time to tax the tech bros. If they're going to become gazillionaires, they're going to have to pay to support everything they burned down to get there. Otherwise, the whole US is about to look like West Virginia after the coal mines closed.