With concerns rising over the long-term impact of AI on the global labor market, analysts appear upbeat on the volume of jobs gained rather than lost – but that doesn't mean it'll be a smooth process.
New research from Gartner shows that from 2028 onwards, roughly 32 million jobs a year will be “reconfigured, redesigned, or fused”.
It’s an outlook that pours cold water on the prospect of mass AI-related job cuts across a raft of industries, but doesn’t outright deny there will be some casualties along the way.
Speaking to ITPro, Helen Poitevin, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, said the consultancy’s modelling points to a period of upheaval as roles are reshaped and workers adapt to new ways of working.
“Our position is there will be no AI jobs apocalypse, but it will unleash jobs chaos,” she said. All told, Poitevin said Gartner estimates that around 150,000 people will need to be upskilled and “supported in new ways of working” every day.
“An additional 70,000 people [will require upskilling] every day, over the next few years, because of the types of work that they do,” she added.
Essentially, enterprises will have to “rewrite expectations of jobs, redesign the roles completely, and have significantly changed workflows and processes that they need to support”.
This isn’t the first time Gartner has pointed to mass upskilling as a way to counter the impact of AI on the workforce. Last year, analysis from the consultancy showed software engineers and developers in particular will be forced to broaden their skillsets as a result of the technology.
But upskilling is easier said than done, and with millions across multiple professions expected to adapt to compensate for the technology, is this achievable?
Candid communication
For business leaders, clear, candid communication will be vital when supporting workers during this period of upheaval, according to Poitevin. Emphasizing the opportunities presented by the technology, rather than focusing on the disruption, will be critical.
“I think there are two aspects of this,” she explained. “One is mapping forward the opportunity and showing this. Part of what we find there is that people have blind spots. They think they're going to decrease roles in one place, but they end up increasing roles in another place, consistently. It's kind of mathematical.”
“We see this pattern repeating, and we've seen it with degrees of automation over over decades, where increased automation [leads] to more jobs, but in a different space, and so it’s about showing where those new jobs are within an [organization] or being able to see where they are and anticipate them.”
Giving workers context on how AI will impact roles and where the technology will be best used is just one part of the equation, however. The second aspect will be to promote an “abundance mindset”.
Poitevin explained this is about helping people “see more of what’s possible with AI, rather than thinking about what is left for me”.
Notably, positive outcomes will be limited to specific industries. According to Poitevin, the technology is expected to deliver a net gain in job opportunities in some tech-related fields. Other industries, such as financial services and the public sector, will be hit harder.
“We do anticipate more jobs lost than gained in financial services industries, especially insurance and banking, as well as in the public sector, so government and education,” she said.
“So we anticipate that they will end up with severe skills shortages in the coming years because of that mismatch of the shape of the new jobs and the people that they have, and that lack of appetite to really grow their workforce.”
Pushback and growing workloads
As with any period of change, pushback by employees is to be expected, according to Poitevin. From here, it’s up to business leaders to continue communicating with workers to ensure there’s alignment.
Elsewhere, enterprises need to be mindful that with future roles and responsibilities being based around AI, this could raise wellbeing-related concerns.
Staff could be left working harder as a result of AI. While manual toil will be reduced, that doesn’t mean our lives will become easier. This might run counter to the common talking points surrounding the technology, but some industry leaders have already flagged this.
Earlier this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI will make workers “busier in the future”, for example. With this in mind, Poitevin said enterprises need to be considerate of “cognitive load”.
“AI can add to cognitive load because of the volume of even more information to consume, but also the judgment and discernment that needs to be applied to know if it's good or not, or how best to leverage that,” she explained.
“In general, we find people are happier [with AI] but they're also busier because they are expected to have to be on top of that much more information, be able to navigate so many more topics, and bring things together so there’s high cognitive load there as well, and so that does need to be monitored.”
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