In the City: Is AI Fueling the UK’s Hiring Freeze?
Leaders with Francine Lacqua
Bloomberg
4.6 • 64 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s In the City, hosts Allegra Stratton and Francine Lacqua are joined by James Kanagasooriam, chief research officer at Focaldata, to unpack how AI is reshaping employment. The conversation explores how AI’s ripple effects are hitting the white-collar sector in the UK, from shrinking graduate job pipelines to the potential collapse of middle-class tax bases.
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Transcript
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| 1:01.2 | Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to In The City. Each week we unpack a story that's crucial to the world's financial capitals. I'm Franci Lacka. |
| 1:22.2 | And I'm Allegra Stratton. So, Fran, it's been going on for years, but it feels like it's reached something of an apache, this debate about artificial intelligence and its, of course, the ability to deliver big productivity gains, particularly here in the UK, but also the problems with it. |
| 1:38.3 | Yeah, and Allegra, we've even seen the government actually doubled down on this commitment to AI. |
| 1:43.5 | Recently, the PM focused a cabinet |
| 1:45.3 | meeting on how it could potentially be used to improve government services, but also living standards. |
| 1:50.5 | Right. And so for all of us, it is unclear how technology, this technology is going to reshape the |
| 1:56.8 | economy. But we've got a report on Bloomberg that businesses are already changing the way |
| 2:02.2 | they hire. A new study from McKinsey looked at how UK companies are reducing, hiring for jobs |
| 2:08.3 | that they think will be impacted by AI. Postings for jobs are actually already down a crazy |
| 2:15.3 | 38% in industries that will be affected by AI. So in our conversation today, we're |
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