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Are jobs getting better?

·30 min·2 clips

Fabien Courtemier calls AI 'the most profound shift' of his career and points to AlphaFold’s 200 million proteins.

1. LSE IQ asks whether jobs are getting better, with Raj Chaudhry, Fabien Courtemier, and Kirsten Seinbruch focused on work, AI, and job quality. 2. Mayan Arad hosts the episode and frames it around social science research from LSE and Google. 3. The core question is whether job quality is improving for workers, and whether AI and work-from-anywhere models are changing that answer. 4. Kirsten Seinbruch says one in four UK workers are in poor-quality jobs, and one in three London workers are in that category. 5. Her definition includes low wages, precarious contracts, unstable jobs, and hours that are either too many or too few. 6. Raj Chaudhry argues that working from anywhere is a broader arrangement than working from home because it lets people choose where to live. 7. He says the pandemic accelerated remote and distributed work, but the geography of work was already changing before 2020. 8. Chaudhry points to London housing costs, smaller towns such as Leeds, Liverpool, and Bristol, and the dual-career problem for couples. 9. He says employers can expand recruitment beyond London to the rest of the UK, other European countries, North Africa, Latin America, and Asia. 10. He also says in-person time should be reserved for mentoring, brainstorming, collaboration, learning, and trust-building rather than individual tasks. 11. Chaudhry argues that work from anywhere is especially important in the public sector because it cannot compete with private-sector wages. 12. He says digital twins, using sensors and AI, could let doctors, nurses, and factory workers monitor sites remotely. 13. Fabien Courtemier calls AI the most profound shift in his professional career and places it alongside the steam engine, electrification, and personal computing. 14. He describes AI as an 'invention of a method of invention' because it speeds up scientific research. 15. His example is AlphaFold, which predicts the 3D structure of 200 million proteins and is now used by researchers in more than 190 countries. 16. Courtemier cites studies showing productivity gains of 14% to 40% in customer support, coding, and professional writing, plus time savings of 122 hours a year. 17. He also says AI can raise creativity, improve output quality, and reduce hostility in call-centre conversations, which can improve retention. 18. The episode has an interview format with long explanatory answers, policy questions, and a reflective closing section. 19. Best for listeners interested in UK labour markets, remote work, and AI productivity. 20. Skip if you want quick entertainment rather than policy-heavy analysis.

As heard by us

A measured look at job quality, AI, and who still gets squeezed by work.

This episode treats job quality as the real question, not just job counts. It begins with poor-quality work in the UK and an even higher share in London, then sets that insecurity beside a more hopeful picture around AI, flexible work, and slightly shorter average hours.

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Why you'd press play

You want a sober answer to whether jobs are getting better, and for whom, not just a simple yes-no on technology.

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