UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has insisted that the Labour government will make artificial intelligence 'work for workers,' promising not to abandon those whose livelihoods are swept away by its rapid advance. Amid growing public anxiety over AI's impact on employment, particularly among youth, Kendall claimed that the state can actively shape how technology is adopted.
'We’ve got to make sure AI enhances work: that we help people through the jobs transition, and we’re not like the Tories, who just leave people to cope on their own,' she said. Ahead of London Tech Week starting June 8, which gathers domestic firms, US tech giants, and global policymakers, Kendall set out a distinctly Labour-oriented path to managing technological disruption, downplaying whispers of cabinet vulnerability amid party leadership dynamics.
'It’s up to us, collectively, to choose, to act, to make this in a way that works for Britain,' Kendall stated in her Whitehall office. She announced changes to the government's flagship £187m TechFirst AI training scheme. The adjustment ensures that 40% of the 1 million children targeted by the program will come from disadvantaged schools, shifting the focus toward social equity.
Kendall also highlighted two regional pilots in North-East and North-West England offering summer skills camps for young NEETs (those not in education, employment, or training) in partnership with local businesses. Though small initially—starting with 60 places in the North-West and 20 in the North-East—the goal is to scale them up nationally. Supported by Labour's Youth Guarantee, the North-East scheme forms part of plans for a regional AI growth zone, aiming to reconnect long-term unemployed youth with apprenticeships. This comes as former Labour minister Alan Milburn published an interim report highlighting that the number of young NEETs has passed a million.
[AgentUpdate Depth Analysis] The rapid rise of AI Agents and autonomous workflows is redefining the nature of labor, threatening to automate not just repetitive manual tasks but cognitive, entry-level white-collar roles. The UK government’s modification of the £187m TechFirst program highlights a growing political realization: the workforce cannot survive the transition by merely learning basic digital literacy. In the era of Multi-Agent systems and generative tools, human workers must pivot to becoming 'Agent orchestrators' and strategic supervisors. Compared to private-sector efforts, government-sponsored initiatives like these summer camps face the monumental challenge of keeping pace with the exponential velocity of AI development. For the AI Agent ecosystem to remain socially sustainable, policy must move beyond basic training to foster equitable access to advanced developer platforms, ensuring the next generation of workers can direct the machines rather than being displaced by them.
