Young Britons turn to bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding as AI threatens white-collar jobs; 160 applicants compete for 2 craft apprenticeships, 728 for a single theater slot; Stanford study finds 19% employment gap for AI-exposed young workers

As fears grow that AI will rapidly displace white-collar jobs, young people in Britain are increasingly choosing traditional crafts — such as bookbinding and metalwork — that require human hand skills. [Getty Images]
As fears grow that AI will rapidly displace white-collar jobs, young people in Britain are increasingly choosing traditional crafts — such as bookbinding and metalwork — that require human hand skills. [Getty Images]

As AI encroaches on entry-level white-collar jobs — from accountants and software engineers to lawyers — young people are turning to centuries-old hand trades. Rather than graduating from university and sitting in front of a computer, some are choosing to bind books by hand, hammer metal or build boats, seeking careers seen as "AI-proof."

According to The Guardian, the trend has been gaining momentum in Britain, where growing numbers of young people are choosing traditional crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding as their profession.

Erin Rowley, a 27-year-old politics graduate, is in her second year as a bookbinding apprentice at Ludlow Bookbinders in Shropshire, England. The core skills she is learning have changed little in centuries. Most of the work is done by hand using Victorian-era presses, gold-foil stamping machines and paste brushes.

Rowley said she chose to step away from the digital world precisely to protect her career prospects. She wanted to move on from a life spent staring at screens and do work that involved making something with her hands. She said objects made directly by people carry an inherently greater value.

There is a paradox at work: traditional crafts that once seemed on the verge of disappearing are finding new relevance in the age of AI.

Paul Kidson, CEO of Ludlow Bookbinders and a fourth-generation bookbinder, estimates that fewer than 50 hand-operated bookbinding businesses remain in Britain. Formal training in the trade declined sharply through the 1950s to 1970s, and by the early 1980s most official apprenticeship programs had vanished.

But the situation is changing as young people seeking the satisfaction of making things with their hands enter the field. Skills that once risked dying out for lack of successors are now emerging as viable careers in the AI era.

The interest extends beyond bookbinding. Cox London, a British design firm specializing in artistic metalwork, launched an apprenticeship program last year. This year, more than 160 applicants competed for just two apprentice positions — a ratio of more than 80 to one.

Lucky Emerson, an apprentice at Cox London, said she feels anxious about AI's rapid advance into creative fields. Even so, she believes the hands-on work of touching materials and crafting objects is something AI cannot easily replicate. She said the value of handmade work will endure for consumers who want something original.

A similar trend is visible at Britain's National Theatre, which runs apprenticeship programs covering not only IT but also traditional wig-making, costume, stage props and metalwork.

Some of these skills are at risk of dying out as the skilled workers who practice them age. All of the metalworkers at the National Theatre are over 50, and experienced traditional wig-makers are increasingly hard to find — which is why the theater has begun training young apprentices directly.

Competition for those spots is fierce. In the past, 100 applicants for a single apprenticeship was considered high demand; in a recent recruitment round, one position drew 728 applications.

Ironically, AI has crept back into the very process of escaping it. The National Theatre said it has struggled to review hundreds of applications after a large number of submissions appeared to have been written with the help of AI.

The back-to-craft movement is not confined to Britain. In the United States, as concerns mount that AI will threaten white-collar employment, young people choosing skilled trades — welding, aircraft maintenance, plumbing and heating and cooling systems — are drawing growing attention.

Research has also emerged suggesting that the shock of AI is falling disproportionately on young workers just entering the labor market.

A study released this month by Stanford University's Digital Economy Lab found that employment among workers aged 22 to 25 in high-AI-exposure occupations was about 19 percent lower than it would have been had it grown at the same rate as employment in low-AI-exposure jobs in the same age group. That gap widened from 15 percent in July last year to 19 percent in June this year.

The researchers found that the shift is playing out less through mass layoffs of young employees and more through a slowdown in new hiring. By contrast, employment of experienced workers in occupations where "tacit knowledge" — the kind built through repeated, hands-on experience — remained relatively stable.

However, the researchers stopped short of concluding that AI alone caused the employment gap. Other factors affecting the labor market — including interest rates, education levels and remote work — mean the causal link between AI and youth employment warrants further study, they said.


sjy@heraldcorp.com