{"id":472867,"date":"2026-05-29T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472867\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T10:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:23:08","slug":"irelands-great-ai-job-displacement-every-employer-every-worker-should-be-talking-about-this-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472867\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s great AI job displacement: \u2018Every employer, every worker should be talking about this\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence (AI<\/a>) has stunned many with the speed of its innovation and threat to jobs, but uniting employers and trade unions in shared opinion is another unexpected wonder of this technology.<\/p>\n

Both sides believe the Government<\/a> needs to do more to mitigate what a growing number of observers believe will be a big upheaval in the jobs<\/a> market arising from the rapid development of AI.<\/p>\n

In the week when the International Monetary Fund (IMF<\/a>) warned 40 per cent of Irish jobs<\/a> could be affected by AI and even Pope Leo devoted his first encyclical<\/a> to the issue calling for AI to be \u201cdisarmed\u201d and used for the common good of mankind, others have joined the chorus of concerns. <\/p>\n

Employers\u2019 group Ibec called for greater investment in retraining and upskilling, a view supported by unions which believe Ireland\u2019s 23-year-old redundancy legislation needs to be updated.<\/p>\n

In previous research, the Department of Finance put the share of Irish jobs likely to be affected by AI at 60 per cent but Ibec considers this an underestimate.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our perspective, it\u2019s really 100 per cent,\u201d says Ger Brady, chief economist and head of national policy at the representative body for business and industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if you are not dealing with or using AI directly, you\u2019ll be in the supply chain of someone who is and that means that you\u2019re going to be interacting with it in some way in the very near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not talking in sci-fi terms, within the 10 years or 20 years: it\u2019s the immediate future, it\u2019s happening now and there is maybe a feeling among businesses that the Government doesn\u2019t quite get the sense of urgency there is about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady believes that almost all of the three million people working in Ireland \u201cwill see their jobs change, unless you\u2019re completely working with your hands … and even then, it will change the way you invoice\u201d.<\/p>\n

He notes how many programmes to reskill employees for new roles are oversubscribed due to a lack of funding and National Training Fund (NTF) is on course to have a surplus of \u20ac3 billion by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What are the jobs AI won\u2019t be coming for?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it makes no sense to be stockpiling money in the NTF when we\u2019re probably facing the biggest transition in the labour market in decades and we could be using it for training,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Irish workers are already feeling the pinch from AI amid growing fears that the great AI job displacement has already begun.<\/p>\n

Meta<\/a> and one of its contractors, Covalen<\/a>, made recent headlines as they announced combined cuts of 1,070 jobs, as the social media giant invests in AI teams that would result in \u201cflattening teams\u201d.<\/p>\n

The job losses have brought home the reality of AI to some in a sector where total employment has declined by just over 20,000 jobs in the year to March.<\/p>\n

Some in the tech sector have accused Big Tech of using AI as an excuse to address \u201cover-hiring\u201d during Covid pandemic but the announcement by Meta follows multibillion dollar investment in AI by the social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. <\/p>\n

This year alone, Meta will invest about \u20ac125 billion in AI and, in addition to the 8,000 jobs axed globally, many more were told they were being redeployed to AI development and implementation.<\/p>\n

\"TraycTrayc Keevans: Companies ‘are figuring out what are they doing or how do they do it’ with regard to AI <\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that this is about companies just looking to cut costs was probably true in a lot of cases up to six months ago but there is a lot of change now and it\u2019s happening fast. AI adoption is really starting to take hold,\u201d says Trayc Keevans, who oversees research at recruiting firm Morgan McKinley and advises overseas firms on hiring in Ireland.<\/p>\n

She says companies are using AI \u201cto automate repeatable tasks and workers are either being let go or they\u2019re being absorbed into other areas, being trained to perform other roles or into oversight roles, so that they supervise the AI\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keevans notes that the unemployment rate would give the sense that \u201cnothing\u2019s really changing\u201d but there is more contract-hiring of staff than a year ago as companies \u201care figuring out what are they doing or how do they do it\u201d \u2013 an indication of the uncertainty companies are experiencing.<\/p>\n

What has been underreported, she says, is the number of new roles already created by the roll-out of the technology. About 80 new, distinct job titles including prompt engineer, answer engine optimisation (AEO) specialist and AI ethics managers, according to research by Morgan McKinley.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0AI revolution to have severe effect on Irish economy with top-end job losses, report warnsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cSome have evolved from existing roles,\u201d she says, \u201cand others are entirely new.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even where job titles or job specs have not been updated, companies are telling the recruitment company that they want staff with AI skills, says Keevans.<\/p>\n

Graduate hiring has been hit too, she says, with those emerging from college having to be a good deal more flexible in how they take their first career steps. <\/p>\n

Banking and insurance feature prominently in the lists of sectors expected to be hit most severely by the coming tidal wave of technological change from AI.<\/p>\n

A trade unionist representing workers in the sector \u2013 Financial Services Union general secretary John O\u2019Connell \u2013 isn\u2019t entirely convinced by the worst-case scenarios projected in the AI revolution, though he concedes: \u201cIt would be foolish not to be concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside papers or reports about the job losses, there are others that say \u201cthe technology is going to be complementary, that it\u2019s not necessarily going to be catastrophic at all,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt obviously is going to have an impact, though, and the Government can\u2019t simply be an observer on it; they have to get out ahead of it and lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish Times view on AI: tentative State response needs to ramp upOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

His trade union supports the idea of ramping up funding for training.<\/p>\n

It also wants to see a forum for dialogue between all of the people affected akin to the Retail Banking Review Dialogue established in 2022 by then minister for finance Paschal Donohoe on the future of retail banking.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not saying things can\u2019t change, that they will never change … it\u2019s a question of how they will change,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Unlike in the US, where Big Tech workers discover their jobs are gone and they are simultaneously locked out of their work system, the Irish statutory 30-day consultation period is aimed at exploring alternatives to job losses. However, O\u2019Connell says it is seen as a \u201cbox-ticking exercise\u201d by some of those Big Tech employers.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell points to the case of Covalen\u2019s job cuts as evidence that legislation on statutory redundancy needs to be updated. Many of the workers losing their jobs at the Meta contractor have received no redundancy payment because they were employed for less than two years. <\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment can always do more,\u201d says Malcolm Byrne TD, who chairs the Oireachtas joint committee on artificial intelligence, \u201cbut this is a right-across-society issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Will the AI \u2018jobs apocalypse\u2019 cloud have a silver lining?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an optimist, but I am worried about the impact that AI will have on people\u2019s employment and their lives. People like certainty but if you\u2019re in a job in an area you feel is at risk, you\u2019re going to be very nervous \u2013 and it\u2019s not just tech; the problem is across a wide range of sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preparing for AI is a majority priority for the Government, he says, and its focus is on seeing \u201cwhere jobs are at risk\u201d, and \u201cupskilling and reskilling citizens to be able to deal with those challenges\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery employer, every worker should be talking about this and individuals should be asking: \u2018What skills do I have that robots can\u2019t replace and what are the skills that I might need to gain if I\u2019m going to be working alongside AI into the future?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence (AI) has stunned many with the speed of its innovation and threat to jobs, but uniting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,56710,4105,61,60,1226,118566,80,1962],"class_list":["post-472867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-financial-services-union","tag-ibec","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-morgan-mckinley","tag-technology","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}