LinkedIn platform data show UK hiring is down 24 per cent on pre-pandemic levels and 10 per cent year on year, while London is down 32 per cent since January 2019, according to a LinkedIn labour-market report and reporting by City AM and The National. Janine Chamberlin, head of LinkedIn UK, said the data points to “economic uncertainty and low business confidence rather than AI job shocks.” At a Chatham House panel on AI and the future of work, Blake Lawit, LinkedIn’s chief global affairs and legal officer, said hiring slowness “seems much more driven by macroeconomic conditions like a rise of interest rates,” per The National. Baroness Minouche Shafik, Prime Minister Starmer’s chief economic adviser, said at the same event there is “no evidence yet of massive displacement as a result of AI.” The LinkedIn report also found 95,000 AI-related roles created in the UK since 2023 and AI engineer hiring running 18 per cent above the overall rate, though 12 per cent of UK workers are in AI-exposed roles with low skill adaptability.