As AI insinuates itself more deeply into our everyday and work lives, a new report underlines the paradigm-breaking impact the technology may have on the job market. A huge proportion of all U.S. workers are at a high risk of being replaced by automated AI systems. This represents a threat that could drive unemployment up and rattling the economy. But a separate report by the World Economic Forum suggests that one way to mitigate against this outcome is a dramatic reskilling and job redesigning effort. All of this news could feed into your plans for deploying AI tools in your company.
The new report, from the world’s largest HR association, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), warns that 15 percent of all American jobs (just above one in seven, and affecting 23.2 million people in total) are at risk of being displaced by automatic processes, HRDive notes.
The types of job that most likely to be affected is one where at least half of the task list can be automated. This includes all forms of automation, including physical tools like robotics as well as artificial intelligence. This means the threat is nuanced, and, as many reports before have shown, some types of job are more at risk than others. For example, SHRM’s report estimates 39.7 percent of software development work is highly automated and at risk from AI, as is a similar share in “mathematical” occupations (financial analysis, perhaps). But just 7.3 percent of the work in the “education and library” professions is automated.
The report also suggests that 7.8 percent of U.S. work product — about 12 million jobs — is already at least 50 percent completed using generative AI tech.
This might raise the specter of mass unemployment, with images not far removed from Great Depression-era poverty and unrest swirling in your head. But SHRM also notes that a “significant majority of employment faces nontechnical barriers to automation displacement.”
This means that many types of work include processes, preferences, physical issues and so on that prevent the job being automated, and thus protects them from AI—at least for now. These types of work have emphasize “interpersonal skills and/or relatively low-tech tools,” such as “many education and health care occupations.” SHRM says “client preferences are the most common” reason for not worrying about AI encroaching on these jobs: people still prefer dealing with people.
Another perspective on the AI threat was expressed in a new report from the World Economic Forum, addressing the new AI “dual workforce challenge, of “balancing overcapacity and talent shortages.” The report cites a global survey of C-suite executives, of which 92 percent said they had up to 20 percent “workforce overcapacity,” meaning they have more workers than they need . By 2028 that figure is expected to rise to 30 percent overcapacity by about half of the leaders surveyed. At the same time, 94 percent of the leaders say they face “critical” AI talent shortages.
The WEF report suggests the issue affects many workplaces already, and the shift is only going to get more pronounced as AI technology improves and becomes more capable and widely used. What was once AI “experimentation” is now “structural disruption,” the report says.
The answer to the issue, the WEF says, is “reskilling at scale,” combined with “redesigning roles for human-AI collaboration,” and “embedding workforce planning into core strategy.” The report basically calls for using HR departments to smooth the transition between the “legacy” way of working (without AI) into the modern way, as companies integrate AI. Agentic AI has the promise of “workforce empowerment,” and can “boost efficiency, resilience and competitiveness,” the WEF thinks while companies “stuck in pilot mode risk falling behind.”
The WEF thinks it’s time for a dramatic upheaval in the workplace, pivoting around the skills needed to operate AI tools. Think of it as the equivalent of the arrival of PCs and printers in the office: typewriters were no longer necessary, and a whole new skillset among workers of all types was needed, The adjustment required rethinking jobs and also reskilling workers on the new tech en masse.
What’s the takeaway for you and your company?
Simply that if you’re deploying AI tools across your company — without the intent of outright replacing any of your workers — you need to make your plans very clear, and communicate the goals you’re aiming for by using AI. Your HR team may also need extra budget, time and direction in order to plan a large-scale ongoing, education program to teach workers how to use AI tools to boost their efficiency. You could also consider upskilling talented workers who’ve had their time freed-up by AI, by giving them expanded roles — an option that could help grow your business.
Kit Eaton
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