41% of employers worldwide say they will reduce headcount by 2030 due to AI

The World Economic Forum has released its bi-annual survey on what employers around the world expect their businesses to look like in the future, and much of the attention is on generative AI. While a majority (77%) expect to help train their current employees to work with AI, 41% say they expect to reduce the number of employees they employ as AI automates more tasks on the job.

The survey includes 1,000 employers worldwide, covering more than 14 million workers in 22 different industry groups, according to the report. New report. One big problem that emerges from the survey is that employers believe that many of their workers do not have the skills needed to do their jobs as technology evolves.

According to the report, artificial intelligence and big data top the list of fastest-growing skills, closely followed by networks and cybersecurity, in addition to technological knowledge. “Complementing these skills related to technology, creative thinking, flexibility, flexibility and agility, along with curiosity and lifelong learning, are also expected to continue to rise in importance over the period 2025-2030.”

The report appears to be very bad news for graphic designers and legal secretaries, two jobs that employers seem likely to need less of in the future, likely due to artificial intelligence.

“The presence of both graphic designers and legal secretaries outside the top 10 fastest-declining jobs, a first-time prediction not seen in previous editions of the Future of Jobs report, may demonstrate GenAI’s increasing ability to perform cognitive work.” Countries report.

Generative AI tools are now able to create detailed drawings using just a few text prompts, although the technology is controversial because it is little more than a plagiarism machine.

“The decline in jobs in both roles is seen as being driven by artificial intelligence and information processing technologies as well as expanding digital access. This is a significant change from the 2023 release of the report, when graphic designers were considered a moderately growing job and legal secretaries did not feature in the growth/decline list.” Expected jobs.

Employers say they believe attracting employees will include a focus on health and well-being, a somewhat vague category at first, but certainly a sentiment that many in the United States can relate to, given our fundamentally broken health care system. The United States is the only wealthy country in the world that has not achieved universal health care coverage, and access to health insurance is largely linked to having a job.

The good news? The survey predicts net growth in the number of jobs that will be created over the next five years, even with the advancement of artificial intelligence.

The report indicates that “extrapolating the expectations shared by participants in the Future of Jobs Survey regarding current trends during the period from 2025 to 2030, job creation and destruction due to structural transformation in the labor market will reach 22% of total jobs today.”

The report continues: “This is expected to result in the creation of new job opportunities equivalent to 14% of total employment today, which is equivalent to 170 million jobs.” “However, this growth is expected to be offset by the displacement of the equivalent of 8% (or 92 million) of existing jobs, resulting in a net growth of 7% of total employment, or 78 million jobs.”

The report asserts that although technology is expected to help boost productivity around the world, humans using this technology are expected to be more productive.

“Importantly, this analysis only compares the 2025 and 2030 proportions of total task delivery attributable to human staff, technology, or collaboration between the two, respectively, and does not take into account the potential change in the absolute volume of work tasks (output) being completed,” The report states.

“In other words, both machines and humans may be significantly more productive in 2030 — doing more or higher value tasks in the same or less time than they would have taken to do so in 2025 — so any concern about ‘humans being put to work’ is moot.” Things that need to be done because of automation will be out of place.”

This is of course little consolation to graphic designers. But hopefully this will be true for other professions, especially since AI has proven to be incredibly stupid and needs a lot of babysitting to make sure it doesn’t screw up any number of tasks.