Will AI Take All The Jobs?

January 24, 2025

Part two of my thoughts about the social impacts of AI.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the impact on jobs and society as a whole as AI starts to do to white collar jobs what automation did to blue collar jobs in the 1980s. For those of us that grew up in a single industry manufacturing town (hello fellow Tokoroans), we saw the (not good) impact on the local economy and society of the well-paid factory jobs being replaced by machines.

The World Economic Forum this month released a 290 page report about their forecast for the future of jobs. Go read it.

Oh ok then 🙂 For those of you who, like me, don’t want to read the whole thing, I got an AI tool to summarise the key points as 8 bullet points and also turn it into an audio file read by Laurence Olivier if you’d rather listen to it as a news story (link at the end)

Key points are:

Job Growth and Displacement:

• By 2030, 170 million jobs are expected to be created, while 92 million will be displaced, resulting in a net gain of 78 million jobs globally.

• Fastest-growing roles include AI specialists, software developers, renewable energy engineers, and climate-focused jobs.

• Clerical and administrative roles, such as cashiers and data entry clerks, are projected to decline the most.

Impact of Technology:

• Generative AI (GenAI) and automation are reshaping the workforce, with 33% of tasks expected to rely on human-machine collaboration by 2030.

• AI adoption varies across regions, with advanced economies benefiting more than lower-income areas.

• Generative AI enhances productivity, allowing less specialised workers to perform expert tasks, but risks inequality if used primarily to replace jobs rather than augment them.

Skills Transformation:

• 39% of current skills will become outdated by 2030, requiring significant reskilling efforts.

• Technological literacy, AI expertise, and adaptability are the top skills in demand, while manual dexterity and precision see declining importance.

• 85% of employers plan to invest in upskilling their workforce to address skill gaps

If you’d rather listen to an audio file of this, here’s the link to listen to Laurence sounding very serious and posh. https://bit.ly/WEFMelanie (By the way the app it will send you to is elevenreader, it’s a free app which will read aloud any book or document to you.

It’s a good way to take your reading with you on the go without reading on your phone while feeding your horses and falling into a hole and rolling your ankle like someone who looks like me may have done yesterday!)