Faith and Work When I’m Out of Work

One banner has become a familiar, almost haunting sight: the #opentowork banner on LinkedIn. Or maybe it used to haunt. Now, when we sign in to see another friend or colleague explaining how they were impacted by “the recent layoffs,” we are no longer shocked. The language has become procedural. The tone, rehearsed. The shock, diluted.

Maybe fear is no longer the problem. What if we have grown numb to an economic crisis quietly boiling before us? What if the most dangerous development is not that layoffs are happening, but that they no longer disrupt us?

That question used to feel situational; tethered to recessions, corporate missteps, or temporary downturns. Thanks to automation, it is now systemic. We have entered the AI era of joblessness. Major layoffs are accelerating, potentially exceeding past technological disruptions. The tools designed to extend productivity are increasingly reshaping the very structure of employment.

Some critics, such as Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), argue that artificial intelligence and automation are convenient smokescreens, claiming that the real issue is overhiring during the pandemic, inflated payrolls, and a corporate correction that was bound to come.^[1] Even though Sam Altman has an allegiance to defending our current uses of AI, there is truth to that commentary. Companies did overextend post-COVID. Markets swelled beyond sustainable demand.

But Altman’s framing is an arbitrary distinction. Overhiring and automation are not mutually exclusive explanations. It is entirely possible that organizations hired aggressively to gain an economic advantage during a global phenomenon—the sudden online of everything during COVID—and then discovered they could automate many of those same roles once the tools matured. Refusing Altman’s false distinction is important because it unveils a paramount predicament. Not to mention, the data below make it impossible to ignore that we are witnessing a problematic layoff trend, one that needs urgent attention. These layoffs are not simply about trimming and gaining, but rather exclusion and replacement. And that changes the conversation.

If jobs are lost because revenue temporarily declines, history suggests they may return when growth resumes. But if we take companies at their word and jobs are being lost because machines now perform them more cheaply, consistently, and indefinitely, then we are not facing a cycle, we are facing a shift, a structural reordering of how labor is valued. This has occurred before—for example, the shift towards the white collar economy—but the scale, and maybe more importantly, the speed, of the upcoming AI disruption may well dwarf anything we have seen before.

The question before us is therefore as urgent as ever. The average person now lives in closer proximity to unemployment. Pastors shepherd congregations where joblessness is no longer rare but regular. Leaders must discern what faithfulness looks like in an economy that seems to need fewer and fewer people.

If the Church avoids this conversation, we will wind up baptizing loss and calling it shrewd stewardship. We will confuse efficiency with wisdom and displacement with inevitability. And once that confusion sets in, it will be difficult to untangle. The question is no longer whether layoffs will happen. The question is, who will we become as they do?

If the question is who we will become, then we need to examine what is happening. Between October 2022 and March 2023, almost 300,000 workers were laid off in the tech industry alone in the United States.^[2] These post-COVID layoffs were potentially the beginning of a trend, because years later we are still experiencing record layoffs. In 2025, over 127,000 people were laid off from the tech sector. In the first month of 2026, over 2,000 layoffs occurred. I repeat, this is only in one industry with a regularly updated tracker. My former employer, Indeed Inc., has laid off over 4,500 employees since 2022, making their latest round of layoffs in November 2025 private, where they admitted these cuts are happening due to an adjustment to artificial intelligence.^[3]

Artificial intelligence, combined with years of pressure to condense teams and maximize efficiency, is steadily reshaping the workforce. Nike recently laid off 775 people after discovering they could automate 775 jobs.^[4] That sentence alone tells us something sobering about the moment we are living in. We are not approaching a new age of joblessness. We are already in it.

This forces us to ask uncomfortable questions not just about technology, but about the systems we’ve built to govern our lives. When a global brand says, in effect, “We can automate 775 roles,” what they are also saying is, “We no longer need 775 people.” The quiet calculus of the modern corporation is being spoken out loud: if machines can do the same work cheaper, faster, and without complaining about how Wednesday’s company-sponsored lunch was too cold, humanoids will be chosen over humans. Nike is redefining who is necessary. Again, this has happened before, but not at the speed at which it is happening this time. As companies begin rolling out this software update, we have to decide whether to download it ourselves.

Catalyzed unemployment is reaching across industry, sparing few families, spanning congregations, and changing the very idea of what it means to earn and provide. To sound one more statistical alarm, 2025 was the worst year for job creation since the financial crisis of 2009.^[5] Only 584,000 jobs were created in all of 2025. To put that in perspective, 323,000 jobs were created in December 2024 alone—one month in a mediocre year for job creation.

This information should be enough. But as unemployment has evolved, the duration of unemployment has also increased significantly, from 21 weeks to 24 weeks.^[6] The combination of increased job losses and a simultaneous halt to job creation is not a trend we can sustain.

And while some insist this is unprecedented, history tells us otherwise.^[7] Technologically prompted unemployment is not new, but the rate at which it is occurring is new. As an historical example, Paterson, New Jersey, was the first planned industrial city in the United States. Silk mills took over the downtown district of Paterson, earning it the nickname Silk City. The silk factories and warehouses made Paterson a desirable place to live and work…until jobs were outsourced for finer machinery and cheaper labor across the pond. In a few years, the factories shuttered, and Paterson’s economy collapsed. Today, the city suffers from a 26 percent poverty rate.

Today, Paterson remains one of the most economically underdeveloped cities in the United States, but statistics do not fully capture what was lost. Silk City was not merely a production hub. It was a promise. It was fathers walking to work before sunrise. It was storefronts filled on Saturdays. It was neighborhoods built around stable wages and generational opportunity. When the machinery replaced the mills, and the jobs crossed oceans, it was not only the payroll that disappeared. What had been a thriving industrial ecosystem slowly hardened into economic fragility.

What happened to Paterson over decades now appears possible in months. The compression of time is what should concern us. We are watching a passenger train take off without brakes. That problem will be easier to stop the sooner we address the issue. The longer we let it gain speed, the more corrective force will be needed. If we do not confront this moment with clarity and courage, we will not simply inherit technological advancement. We will also inherit a future that is less beneficial to society than it could be. That misses the point of Artificial Intelligence. Let’s talk about how to view this new iteration of unemployment from the prospective employee lens as well as the upstanding employer.

If the train is already moving, then we’d better start moving on our response. To respond properly, we first must explore our identity. Who are we when our job is taken away? Have we become someone different? How does faith work when we are out of work?

Listen to me: some of the most important work can only be done when you are away from what would typically be called “work.”

This is difficult to see in American work culture. We have a work culture in America where employees average a desperate 10 days of vacation per year. Compare that to Germany, where 30 days are taken on average, and you can easily see how there might be room to improve in understanding and valuing time away from our job. And Germany is not alone. Many developed nations build extended rest into the rhythm of work itself, signaling that productivity is not the sole measure of value. Our work culture in America does not typically afford us the ability to prepare to work in a way that represents the whole of who God made us to be. When time off is scarce, reflection is rare.

When reflection is rare, identity subtly fuses to output. We become what we are able to produce, nothing more. But if we lean into the work we can only do when we are out of work, we will return to our career more whole, more grounded, and more confident than before. This will change how we work forever. Unemployment, painful as it is, can become an interruption that clarifies rather than destroys.

We might feel rejected by our former employer, while potential employers who do not grant the hiring process enough dignity make us feel unwanted. Or maybe we feel ashamed and alone. A layoff email can feel impersonal, but its effects are deeply personal. It convinces us of the commonly accepted lie that we are expendable, replaceable. It can tempt us to interpret a corporate decision as a verdict on our worth.

Joblessness can leave our faith floundering. It exposes how much of our stability was tethered to a title. To help us withstand this, here are ways to stay grounded. What follows is not a formula for quick reemployment. It is a pastoral invitation to steward this season faithfully. While you fight for a decision on your next career move, here are other choices that will set you up to honor God well in your next role:

Decide to detach your identity from your title. Our job is not the extent of who we are; it is an extension of who we are. Work must flow from who we are, not manufacture who we are. When Adam was placed in the Garden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15), that did not become his extent.

If we do not have a deeper-rooted self, then when work is going well, identity can quietly fuse with performance. In a culture obsessed with roles and earnings, it becomes easy to anchor our whole personhood to how we are known in one domain of life. Whether that role is parent, teacher, pastor, or quarterback, there is always a temptation to equate position with personhood.

While you are away from work, refocus on who you are as a child of God, not merely a worker for God. You and I are God’s workers (1 Corinthians 3:9), but we are his children first (John 1:12).

That order matters. In 1 Corinthians, Paul situates believers as co-laborers in God’s field, meaning our work participates in God’s purposes but does not define our standing before him. In John’s Gospel, sonship precedes service. Identity is received before it is expressed. Regaining this theological sequence will help us cultivate a healthier expression of work moving forward.

“Servant of God” is a shared title among kings (2 Kings 19:34), prophets (1 Kings 14:18; 2 Kings 14:25), the nation of Israel (Psalm 136:22), and even the Messiah himself (Isaiah 52:13, Zechariah 3:8). We too, when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, have been given an identity that reaches beyond any offer letter or pink slip. It cannot be added to or taken from us. So, no matter our office—or lack thereof—we belong to the King of everything. That’s us. That is who we are when we are earning our highest salary or our lowest.

If work is an extension of who we are, not the extent of who we are, then we should be able to lose our job without losing ourselves. If that feels impossible, we likely have an unhealthy attachment to our work. Stress during an unexpected career change is normal. It should be hard to lose our job. But work does not have the strength to bear the weight of our identity. It does not have the capacity to carry the full extent of our humanity. Work was only ever meant to express the life God has given us, the talents he has entrusted to us, and the vision, hopes, and goals he has placed within us.

When the lines between work and identity blur, we stand too close to fire. Yet detachment creates clarity. When work is stripped away, we gain the opportunity to define it properly. Our occupation is not our most central vocation. Living before God is. Do not let what you do determine who you are. Let who you are in Christ shape what you do.^[8]

Hear this: joblessness is not a spiritual failure, and unemployment is not a pause in discipleship. In fact, joblessness is evidence that the Bible is true. When Genesis 3:18 says the ground will bear thorns and thistles, it is speaking of our work. Work is broken! The evidence of brokenness shows clearly in our work on earth. But we thank the God of everything who works in us and through us, even after our daily work vanishes. Unemployment is not an interlude in spiritual formation.

But living into that truth requires a couple more practical steps…

Resolve to rest. It might be tempting to start hustling toward a new job. Being out of work is understandably accompanied by a sense of urgency to secure the next position. You have bills to pay and a life to live. We have all heard the maxim, “Searching for a job is a full-time job.” No lie there. We must be diligent in our job hunt. And the longer the hunt, the hungrier we become. The wiser it appears, the wiser it is to incessantly update our résumé. Networking. Applying. Following up.

But it does not quite work that way in practice. If you have been unemployed, you know that sometimes you have done absolutely everything you can do in a day. You have applied, written, reached out, searched, and refreshed your inbox more times than you would like to admit. After four focused hours, there is not much left to do except wait, and then try again tomorrow.

Unemployment raises anxiety inducing questions: How will I pay my astronomical rent? Am I good enough to stay in this field? What is the worst job I am willing to take to make ends meet? Jesus asks a better question: “Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27). Anxiety feels productive, but it primarily produces exhaustion. And if we take the advice to hustle too far, we risk missing the other work this season is inviting us to do.

Pause for a moment and consider this: joblessness affords the unique opportunity to slow down, the freedom to steward your own time. So, take time to slow down for once! Move at a new pace, even if just for a couple of days. Window shop at that store you haven’t visited in a year. Call that family member you enjoy talking to. Savor a late lunch without apologizing for chewing with your mouth open on Zoom. Take an aimless walk around the city while you break from fine-tuning your cover letter. Exercise without multitasking. Without headphones! Make coffee so slowly it tastes like Saturday even if it’s Tuesday. Be—for once.

After taking some time to rest, you can revisit your employment search at a manageable pace.  Try setting up your first week of job hunting like the following:^[9]

• Day 1: Revise half your résumé. Approach this as an act of careful reflection. You are curating a record of contribution, skill, and growth that deserves precision rather than haste.
• Day 2: Revise the second half. Sustained attention strengthens credibility. When you give intentional language to your experience, you reinforce your own understanding of what you bring to the table.
• Day 3: Write a cover letter that tells a story of triumph. Unemployment is real but it is not a realistic lens through which to view a career. To lose employment, you first had to gain employment. Talk about where you have stood tallest. Whether you are a recent grad who helped a club grow or a COO who reorganized the most notable company in town, you have a work story worth telling. Communicate proactive direction, not reactive “what I’ll do better next time” sentiments.
• Day 4: Tell three people you know will care. Ask them if they are willing to be a reference during your job search. Vocation unfolds most clearly within community. Inviting trusted voices into your search strengthens both your confidence and your accountability.
• Day 5: Write a post for LinkedIn about what you are looking for next. If community helps unfold vocation, public sharing steams away the wrinkles. Clear articulation creates alignment. When you define your next step publicly, you clarify your own focus and widen the circle of potential opportunity. Allow your network to prove that more people care than you think. Your next role might be waiting on the other side of vulnerability.
• Day 6: Make a list of your top three dream jobs and create a plan to apply to them. Do you know anyone who works there already? Connect with a recruiter at the company on LinkedIn and engage with their content. Direct message them for advice applying to the role you are eyeing. Intentional pursuit guards against drifting into whatever feels available. Targeted effort preserves ambition while keeping your search disciplined and relational.
• Day 7: Pray and rest. Celebrate in one small way. Prayer reorients us toward ambitious dependence. Celebration marks progress and reminds us that faithfulness to the process matters as much as outcomes.

Refuse to believe the lie that anxiously is the only way to job hunt. Resist the urge to hurry toward whatever is next. Make a deliberate choice to move forward without letting fear set the timeline.

And when you get back to work, try to keep that same sense of ease. The pace you create while unemployed will shape your health while employed. If you open the door to fear now, it will not suddenly go away with an offer letter. When you receive your start date, it will take the driver’s seat. If you’ve allowed the gospel of grace to steady you through the waves of joblessness, you will have an anchor that withstands the storms of any job.

Pronounce work as more than a paycheck. Work has importance beyond remuneration. Romans 4:4 states that wages are credited as an obligation to the one who works. Paul’s point is not to reduce work to a transaction, but instead to distinguish earned wages from received grace. The implication is profound: work operates within an economic exchange, but our worth before God does not. Work is not divorced from money. Our work deserves compensation. Scripture affirms the dignity of earned wages. Yet Scripture also refuses to collapse value into payment. Money is not the sum of the value of our work.

Decades of peer-reviewed research in sociology, psychology, and labor economics consistently show that job loss correlates with increased anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and erosion of self-worth. Marie Jahoda’s classic “latent deprivation” theory adds the context that employment supplies more than wages. A job structures time, provides social contact, confers status, offers collective purpose, and creates regular activity.^[10] When work disappears, those stabilizing elements disappear with it. The average person might only focus on the loss of economic stability. But both Scripture and social science testify that work shapes identity, rhythm, and belonging in a way that is difficult to replicate.

Recognizing work as an extension of our humanity makes it clear that job loss transcends financial loss. This biblio-social context suggests that we should expand our understanding of work to fit the different categories it intersects. The span of work in our lives is wide. And we often fail to take the time to examine how intertwined our work is with our personhood. Joblessness affords us the bandwidth to explore the full reality of work and all that God made it to be for us. In other words, unemployment exposes the lie that work is just about earning. While the lie is exposed, shine the light on it. Work extends from the whole of our being. Money may be a central aspect, but work must be more than dollars and cents.

To recognize work as more than just income, we must discover the God-given potential in our field. This way, the worth we see in our work is not tied to our paycheck. To work is human nature (Genesis 2:15). Human beings were commissioned to labor before sin entered the world. Work preceded remuneration and therefore obtained a dignity that cannot be captured by a dollar amount. So work is too meaningful to be defined by what a corporation gives or takes away. Work is God-given.

Simultaneously, the onus rests on a broader community. While controlling the controllables, it is worth considering who else is responsible for these false mindsets around work. How did we arrive at a point where unemployment demands such profound interior work? A comprehensive conversation around joblessness cannot end among those experiencing it. Putting the brakes back on this brakeless train requires a turn away from those who are exiting to those who remain.

Unemployment is a corporate decision. Now that we have addressed the soul of the displaced, let’s address the conscience of the decision maker. I firmly believe it is the responsibility of the employer to sustain an environment that extends humanity instead of callously eliminating humans in the workplace. We need to redefine what it means to “win” the technology race. The end cannot simply be better technology. The end must be a better humanity. Success cannot be measured only by capability. It must be measured by consequence.

Elon Musk recently predicted that “work will be optional,” likening it to playing sports or a video game.^[11] If we want to work, he suggested, it will be like choosing to grow vegetables in our backyard instead of simply buying them at the store. Beneath that analogy is a profound shift. Work, in this vision, is no longer necessary for provision. It becomes recreational, elective, detached from survival. Production is handled elsewhere, distribution assumed.

So what do we do in a world where jobs, and the problems those jobs once solved, are increasingly handled by systems that never get sick, never call out, never need rest, and never require dignity? Now that companies are publicly admitting what we have privately known for the past five years (major lay-offs were more about automation and company savings than anything else), we can have an honest conversation about the future of jobs and job loss. The direction of the AI takeover can be steered by ethics, not a few tech company leaders.

Capitalism, which has its positives and negatives, will always tell us that the stock price matters most. So, when Nike’s 775 people lose their livelihoods, the logic goes, that “loss is unfortunate, but secondary to shareholder returns.” And a company like Nike has no shortage of shareholders to satisfy. Still, the question lingers: where do we go when millions more jobs disappear under the same rationale?

At what point does “lucrative business” lose its ethics? At what point does fiscally responsible automation lose its heart? When does the pursuit of bigger margins become the wrong pursuit?

I’m increasingly convinced the Church must lead here. Not with fear, and not with naïve optimism, nor with a disregard for the competitive economics of business, but with ethical clarity and moral imagination. We need a theologically informed governance for artificial intelligence and automation. Christians in the workplace should step in to define and govern the ethical use of AI.

What’s happening now feels like this: the most powerful people in the room have found ways to automate the work of the least powerful. Jesus has strong words about that. In Matthew 18, he centers on “the little ones” and warns against disregarding them. Jesus overthrows the way greatness is defined—and the way social success is known. His disciples ask a normal cultural question, the same one every workplace asks in its own way: Who is the greatest? Who matters most? Who gets protected when decisions get tight? They are thinking hierarchically, assuming the ability to wield power determines significance. Jesus answers by pulling a child into the center and saying, in effect, the Kingdom is concerned with the direction of power. When power is exerted, who is it for?

In our workplaces, the “little ones” are often those whose roles can be automated, whose labor can be erased from a spreadsheet in the name of savings. They are the ones with the least leverage in the room and the most to lose when the margins become the mission. But image bearers are not line items. They are people. And the image of God is always worth extending.

And Matthew 18 presses this beyond leadership advice into theological urgency. Jesus does not treat welcoming the little ones as optional kindness. He ties it to himself. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” That is salvific language. It means our treatment of the most automatable among us is bound up with our confession of Christ. It exposes whether we have actually understood his Kingdom at all, a Kingdom in which we cannot lay claim to anything good we have received (1 Cor. 4:7).

It is becoming clear that only an understanding of the gospel of grace will lead us to the place where we use technology to multiply our work instead of flattening it. Only in the gospel of Jesus Christ do we find a paradigm that makes it impossible to look endlessly at jobs that can be automated and push “go.” It is only grace that informs the employer that he only has the ability to make a decision because it has been afforded him. Grace got us here, and grace must move us forward.

So, caring for the little ones is not a nice thing for a CEO to do when profits are strong. It is a theological and ethical imperative, especially when profits are threatened. It is a test of what we believe about greatness, stewardship, and the image of God in the people whose names never make the earnings report. If God’s people in the marketplace do not create corporations accountable to this in this hour, we will quietly accept a future where efficiency is baptized and the vulnerable displaced.

Sometimes I imagine a future where everything is automated. The world is “solved” as Elon Musk suggests. We don’t go to Target anymore; we click a button at home, and what we need materializes at our door. No cashiers—robots. No warehouse workers—more robots. Very few are employed because they don’t have to be. At first glance, that world sounds efficient. Clean. Frictionless. No long lines? Praise God! No labor disputes. No payroll headaches. No human error! We have subtly trained ourselves to think of work as a necessary evil. If work is something to escape via automation, then automation is the pathway to the life we really want. So, when someone promises a solved world, it does not immediately alarm us. Instead, it is relieving.

Relief from what, though?

We have established that work is about more than profit and personal gain. Work is the primary way human beings participate in cultivation, contribution, and community. Remove work entirely, and we do not simply remove jobs. We reconfigure dignity. We centralize power in the hands of those who own the systems and detach the rest from meaningful participation in sustaining the world they inhabit.

The greater danger is not technological. It is anthropological. When work becomes optional, humanity risks becoming ornamental. We become fixtures in Tesla’s robotic world.^[12]

If we are ever going to create a future where a solved world actually takes care of everyone, it will require real humility—the kind that recognizes that even the most important person in the room has what they have because it was received, not merely earned.^[13] Yes, hard work matters. But when life is seen primarily as a gift, not an achievement, we stop looking for ways to eliminate those beneath us on the corporate ladder. We start looking for ways to care for them, keep them, extend what is in them, and ensure the provision God has entrusted to our organizations continues to reach their families.

Automation technology and artificial intelligence can represent what it means for work to be an extension of who we are, not the extent of who we are. If automation is to be used properly, it must be used in a way that extends humanity, not ends humanity.

In the technology race, we need to ask a better question. Not simply, “How fast can we build?” but, “How do we multiply the good work of humans?” How do we extend the wisdom of the best teacher at my school to create educational opportunities? How do we amplify the skill of the most compassionate nurse? How do we scale the discernment of the wisest leader without replacing the people who embody those gifts? How do we leverage automation to extend humanity, not end humanity, in the workplace?

Right now, job creation is plummeting. We are creating fewer jobs and hiring fewer people, largely because we have discovered the power of these tools. Yet our use of their power has not matured. We are using artificial intelligence to consolidate labor rather than cultivate it. The real power of these tools has not yet been fully realized. The true economic breakthrough will come when we learn to leverage artificial intelligence to create more jobs, not eliminate them.

When we arrive there, we will know we have matured in our use of technology. We will have moved from extraction to extension. From substitution to multiplication. Substitution asks, “How can this machine replace this person?” Multiplication asks, “How can this tool increase the impact of this person?” Substitution reduces headcount. Multiplication increases capacity. Substitution centralizes power. Multiplication distributes power. Substitution treats labor as expendable. Multiplication treats labor as generative. When we find the power to multiply humanity with AI, we will find a brighter socio-economic future for all.^[14]

There are already glimpses of this approach. In parts of Africa, artificial intelligence is being used to amplify teachers’ skills, expanding access to quality education without eliminating the teacher’s role. Technology should not erase the educator; it should extend the educator to produce greater educational outcomes. The goal is to automate educational experiences to eliminate educational disparities. If we can multiply the expertise of the private school teacher, then public school students without the same economic advantages should be able to receive a similar education. Technology can allow one gifted instructor to reach more students, with more precision, while preserving the relational core that only human beings can provide. This is a different imagination of progress. It assumes that technology should widen participation rather than narrow it. It treats automation as a force multiplier for human dignity rather than a mechanism for human displacement.

If work is truly an extension of who we are and not the extent of who we are, then automation should reflect that theology. It should extend what is best in us. It should increase the reach of wisdom, compassion, and skill. It should create new arenas for contribution rather than quietly shrinking the number of people allowed to contribute.

We do not need to abandon technological advancement. But employers must refuse to let technological advancement define human worth. The end cannot simply be smarter machines. The end must be stronger communities, wider opportunities, and deeper participation in meaningful work.

Let AI erase unemployment, not the employed.

^[1] Sam Altman says AI is being used as a scapegoat. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-altman-says-quiet-part-165405075.html

^[2] https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs/

^[3] https://www.hrdive.com/news/layoffs-glassdoor-indeed-ai-headwinds/752876/#:~:text=Dive%20Brief:,%E2%80%9Creignite%20growth%E2%80%9D%20moving%20forward.

^[4] Nike layoffs due to automation. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/26/nike-to-lay-off-775-employees-at-us-distribution-centers.html

^[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/december-jobs-report-unemployment-rate-rcna253115

^[6] Department of Labor, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/number-of-unemployed-at-6-9-million-in-december-2024.htm#:~:text=The%20unemployment%20rate%20changed%20little,changed%20little%20over%20the%20month.

^[7] Bernie Sanders opens his “AI Could Wipe Out the Working Class” monologue with the covid catchphrase, “In these unprecedented times.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dthbi4lzO58

^[8]The Faith and Work Podcast, “Who are you without your job?”  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-faith-work-podcast/id1438640530?i=1000749589078

^[9]  Masters of scale episode with Cognitive Scientist Maya Shankar, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/masters-of-scale/id1227971746?i=1000746187951

^[10] Jahoda, Marie. Employment and Unemployment: A Social-Psychological Analysis. Cambridge University Press, 1982,.

^[11] Elon Musk’s dystopian quote about automation and the future of “work” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-10-20-183701720.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jaGF0Z3B0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAId4CPqk9SwZUes488-_cdyKepEv60_YxflpmKtZKVHoHB3Hr857iCLwHiE96blvdKWjuo_qZEU6kWsvVYAswzlNJ6MW_QehsH8PWarjFBRtBwcOgKFNNyI1moiKGBIYlYebvaZufU-ur_yM6o1MR5CkF1yR3fhxG1uClldDirb_

^[12] At the World Economic Forum, Elon Musk claimed robots will outnumber humans soon. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/elon-musk-technology-abundant-future-davos-2026/

^[13]Nick Bostrom, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World (London: Allen Lane, 2024).

^[14] AI’s next Frontier Isn’t Where You Think. Making the case that Africa is not behind in AI. Africa is focused on using AI as a tool for human flourishing. https://youtu.be/P1rPiSxYagM?si=TH9B8iIYM5lBCKX4