According to WEF’s Future of Jobs report, there has been a significant shift in the way Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation influence job creation and displacement. A majority of businesses now rely on advanced technologies such as automated cloud computing and AI-based predictive intelligence and business analytics to meet their organizational goals. With tasks becoming increasingly automated and self-service driven, there is an immediate need for reorganizing the labor market and upskilling of the existing workforce across all the industries. Today, more than one-third (34%) of all organizational-level work is automated by machines, while the remaining 66% are still carried out by humans.
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the human-machine frontier in favor of automated machines which is gaining the faith of business leaders. These business leaders now trust AI and machine learning algorithms for building robust and cost-optimized automation processes for their organization during uncertain times. Today, a business can automate 15% of their tasks for greater speed by implementing Large language models (LLMs), such as Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs). By combining these LLMs with existing business solutions, the share of automation could grow to 50% in the next 4 years. A large percentage of jobs related to data processing, information synthesis, evaluation of job-related information and performing manual and physical tasks would be heavily disrupted by AI and automation technologies.
The shift toward AI-based automation and big data analytics would be the biggest factors that would influence the job market in the coming years. And, the business leaders should be adequately prepared to embrace the shift in human-machine frontier. Business leaders could use AI and automation to cope with the challenges that these technologies pose to their organizational growth and sustainability.
Dan Adika, CEO at WalkMe , the leading digital adoption company focused on the employee experience believes that “AI is one of the most important technological advances the world has seen, and has been compared to the discovery of fire and electricity. More than the cloud, the iPhone, the internet, the computer, AI creates unique opportunities for societal transformation. As a result, Goldman Sachs forecasts AI could contribute $7 trillion in global economic growth in 10 years – a 7% increase – as the technology adoption accelerates. What makes AI so revolutionary is not just the technology itself, but the rate at which it’s transforming the workplace.”
Dan accurately quoted the WEF’s Future of Jobs Report to mention how jobs would be impacted by AI in the next five years. Dan said, “According to WEF’s Future of Jobs Report, 23% of jobs will be disrupted by AI in the next five years. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs estimates 300 million jobs globally could be disrupted by AI. The question is not if but how this technology will change your workplace. Maintaining a balance between benefiting from AI and prioritizing employee development and success is going to be a key factor across every sector, in order to ensure employees are equipped to use AI tools. AI has the potential to expand employees’ capabilities by empowering them with data insights, automation, and heightened productivity, though this requires they are able to successfully adopt AI technologies and deploy them appropriately to solve key business challenges. Pairing the technology with the power of the person will further expand the capabilities for AI to enhance every aspect of business, especially at a time when economic uncertainty and career instability are continuing to shift workplace culture.”
Here are some ways business leaders should embrace AI and automation and excel in the sphere of disruptions brought by the human-machine pairing.
Gain access to a digitally compatible talent pool of workers
Automation is not a new phenomenon and the debate on its capacity to replace human workforce is just as old as its origin.
AI and automation would hardwire the job market in more ways than one can possibly think of. The broadening access to modern digital tools would create more jobs than it would displace in the current era. The WEF report highlights the creation of 2 million jobs for business titles such as E-commerce Specialists, Digital Transformation Specialists, and Digital Marketing and Strategy Specialists. Regional factors would play a key role in the creation of new jobs across various regions, with South Asia leading the race while Sub-Saharan regions continue to fall behind.
Business leaders could adopt frontier technologies to tap in the newly created job markets and job roles to continue building their organization and meeting growing consumer demands across the globe.
Green Jobs on the rise. Are you hiring for the green economy?
What is a green job?
A green job is the set of activities that contributes toward creation of a sustainable and eco-friendly environment. It could be a self-employed role or a role designated by an organization in green sector (such as solar energy generation) or a traditional organization that operates and serves others businesses involved in sustainable green economy.
The WEF report highlights how employees and employers are responding to climate changes by creating new job roles and transition to greener future. While the net hiring rate for green jobs fell in 2022 compared to 2021, it is still better than the volume of green jobs created in 2020, 2019 and 2018. So, if we take the trends, the green jobs creation trends would continue to rise in the next 4-5 years, even as government institutions play a greater role in “facilitating the green transition.”
Leaders include Australia, Argentina, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US.
As per the report, here is the list of the top-ranking green jobs that would be most affected by the rise of AI and automation in the human-machine frontier.
- Climate-change mitigation technology
- Environmental change management technology
- AgriTech
- Biodiversity protection technologies
- Water-related adaptable technologies
- Electric vehicles technology (EV mobility and autonomous driving)
AI, big data, cognitive intelligence and social influence would play a big role in the next five years
The corporate hiring strategy is changing with the maturity of AI and automation tools.
“As cloud computing, AI and microservices are developed and adopted, the skills required to support them constantly evolve. Companies need more employees with the right skills and experience – plus IT infrastructure and enterprise software experts with specialized skills in cybersecurity, data analytics and cloud architecture,” said Vince Padua, CTO at Axway.
Clearly, business leaders are reorienting their talent acquisition and skills development initiatives around AI, big data and automation technologies — emphasizing how these frontier technologies would become “strategic priority” for every organization in the coming years.
How to find great talent who need little or no training?
You could use a HR Tech tool like Oracle Dynamic Skills to identify existing skillsets in your talent pool and analyze how employees are adding to skills inventory as per the recommendations of their managers and the HR. AI recruitment and skills analysis tools such as iCIMS, Vervoe and Otomeyt should be part of a modern talent acquisition process that allows hiring managers to make highly-informed decisions based on merit.
Understanding barriers in the business transformation
Most leaders acknowledge that AI and machine learning applications can help in business transformation. While AI and ML tools are becoming more standardized within an organization, their remains a significant skills gap that can monitor and supervise these tools properly. According to WEF, 59.7% of respondents named shortage of adequate skills in the local labor market as the biggest barrier to business transformation. 53.4% of respondents stated their inability to attract great talent as the second biggest barrier.
Equating the demand for great talent with adequate skills in AI, big data and automation, we can systematically highlight that the future of workforce transformation would depend on how quickly and accurately hiring managers can tap into the digital skills inventory and close the gaps in their organization’s talent pool.
Promoting great talent within the organization
A majority of organizations surveyed for this research stated that having a streamlined talent progression and promotion process is key to employee retention. Offering reskilling and upskilling opportunities alongside paying higher wages are also important to retaining employees for a long time within the organization. Organizations that gave value to employee training and upskilling programs are visibly more successful in attracting and retaining talent. This trend is seen in industries such as Business Support and Premises Maintenance Services; Employment Services; Insurance and Pensions Management; and Research, Design and Business Management Services industries.
Overall, it is important for business leaders to leverage frontier technologies such as AI and automation to evaluate their organizational growth built on training and development initiatives. AI-based skill assessments would emerge as the biggest game-changer for organizations that are able to measure the effectiveness of a training program on reskilling and upskilling employees from a present and future perspective. With so much happening in the job market, sticking to the same employee training and promotion programs may not bear the right kind of results in the long term. So, business leaders should be always ready for the disruptions and sharpen their analytical goal-setting mechanisms with AI and automation tools.
Conclusion
The analysis of key AI-based occupations have revealed somewhat divergent trends in the US economy. AI talent shortage is discussed extensively across the board. While AI investments in education remain a key focus around the world, it needs a solid backing of the policymakers who could determine the path AI talent pipeline development takes without disrupting the other talent pools. Organizations, investors, government stakeholders and AI citizens in general could all come together to formulate an AI and automation skills enhancement policy that benefits the whole of mankind now and in the near future.
Of course, green jobs is something that would be talked widely, because that’s where the future of humanity exists — with or without AI and automation.