{"id":145400,"date":"2025-09-15T10:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/145400\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:29:07","slug":"ai-wont-lead-to-mass-redundancies-whats-happening-is-way-more-exciting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/145400\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018AI won\u2019t lead to mass redundancies \u2013 what\u2019s happening is way more exciting\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wave of gloomy headlines suggests that artificial intelligence is already fuelling a white collar recession. If that\u2019s true, then Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei\u2019s prediction that half of entry-level knowledge worker jobs could vanish within five years<\/a> may be unfolding even faster than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While he was referring to the US market specifically, this is very much a global story and similar trends are playing out in the UK, too. University graduates in the UK are facing the toughest job market since 2018, according to a survey by job search site Indeed<\/a>, with entry-level roles in professional occupations particularly exposed to AI displacement.<\/p>\n

From graduates anxious about landing their first job to seasoned professionals fearing replacement by software, the sense of unease is very real. But while these concerns are understandable, my company\u2019s research currently tells a different story. This isn\u2019t a long-term job cull, but the beginning of the \u2018superworker\u2019<\/a> era where companies help employees grow by redefining roles and building new skills for an AI-driven future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI is impacting the workforce, but not in the way you think<\/p>\n

So, what do we actually know about employment in mid-2025? The latest UK labour market figures <\/a>show an unemployment rate increasing slightly to 4.7 per cent, which is worrying but perhaps not as cataclysmic as some have made out.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, according to the World Economic Forum, 40 per cent of global employers expect to reduce headcount<\/a> in areas where tasks can be automated. What companies are not doing is enacting the kind of sweeping job cuts some AI proponents, like Amodei, have predicted. Instead, they\u2019re hiring more cautiously and using this time to assess how AI fits into their operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With some investors questioning whether the potential of generative AI has been overhyped and amid wider economic uncertainty, this feels more like a hiring pause than a jobs crisis. It\u2019s worth remembering that if the $110bn (\u00a381bn) spent last year on AI adoption<\/a> is accurate, businesses still need time to absorb and integrate this technology. As a result, its full impact on hiring is likely to unfold more gradually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Tony Blair Institute has predicted that any potential UK job losses in the private sector could be mitigated through the creation of new roles. I also respectfully challenge the core assumption behind the knowledge worker decimation theory. Too often, AI is imagined as a tireless, zero-cost replacement worker. In reality, AI is a tool that enables existing employees to work faster and smarter. Even at its best today, it\u2019s not something you want to leave to its own devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Business advances through creativity, not automation<\/p>\n

AI is not capable of inventing the iPhone or coming up with an effective solution to nuclear fusion. The groundbreaking success of companies such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and Apple boils down to one thing: human creativity. These tech giants didn\u2019t just automate tasks, they brought bold new ideas to life in ways no machine ever could.<\/p>\n

Human ingenuity, creativity, problem solving and intuition are uniquely human qualities. Machines excel at implementing, optimising and scaling, which helps us focus on what truly matters and adds value, but they aren\u2019t replacements for people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Disruptive innovation, the theory devised by business academic\u00a0Clayton Christensen, is fundamentally driven by humans. The company of the future, what we term the \u2018superworker company\u2019, will be powered by humans. The nature of work will evolve, but people will stay at the heart of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What some call a white collar recession is just a temporary phase. In five years, we\u2019ll see a workforce that\u2019s leaner, more creative and fundamentally human.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re young, you have some big advantages<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a recent graduate, the job market might feel soft. But there\u2019s a major upside: today\u2019s young people have more experience in using AI to learn and solve problems. As one high school student told me: \u201cI don\u2019t use AI to do my homework \u2013 I use it to figure out what I need to learn so I can do it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

That mindset, using AI as a tutor and tool, not as a crutch, is becoming second nature to Gen Z. More than 30 per cent of new jobs posted on LinkedIn now ask for experience using AI tools. Soon, AI fluency will be as essential as Microsoft Office.<\/p>\n

While some companies have slowed entry-level hiring, others are realising they\u2019ve lost a vital pipeline of AI-savvy talent. Organisations such as LinkedIn are reviving early career programmes to attract younger workers with skills their senior teams often lack.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to worry that white collar jobs are disappearing. But AI is creating new roles, and we\u2019re just at the beginning. Look at the surging demand for AI skills in the UK<\/a>. Change is happening fast, but don\u2019t buy into the idea that AI is the job market Grim Reaper. We\u2019re in a turbulent phase of capitalism, but things will stabilise. Regardless of age or role, humans remain central to the future of work.<\/p>\n

Josh Bersin is an HR analyst and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wave of gloomy headlines suggests that artificial intelligence is already fuelling a white collar recession. If that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[45,49,48,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-145400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}