Artificial Intelligence: Job Killer and Job Machine at the Same Time?

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Reports of massive job losses due to AI are becoming increasingly dramatic. Amazon has just announced that it will cut 14,000 administrative positions. CEO Andy Jassy had already stated in June that the increased use of AI would lead to job cuts, particularly through the automation of repetitive and routine tasks.

“Amazon has apparently achieved sufficient productivity gains through AI to implement significant staff reductions,” says Sky Canaves, an analyst at eMarketer, regarding the Amazon announcement. Previously, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced that they had “reduced the customer service team from 9,000 to 5,000 employees.” These positions were replaced by AI agents that have already handled 1.5 million customer conversations.

More Jobs Through AI?

According to AI providers, however, not only are jobs being cut, but many new ones are also being created, which would result in a net positive. Various studies confirm this. For example, a study by the World Economic Forum (WEF) concludes that AI and other IT tools will eliminate over nine million jobs by 2030. However, the same trends are expected to create eleven million new jobs according to the forecast, resulting in a net increase of two million jobs.

Professors Tania Babina and Anastassia Fedyk also arrive at the conclusion in a study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution that “the introduction of AI will lead to company growth, more employment, and increased innovation, especially in product development and services.”

STEM graduates in particular would benefit from this. “The proportion of employees with a STEM degree has significantly increased in companies investing in AI, while the proportion of other graduates (social sciences, humanities, medicine, etc.) has correspondingly decreased,” their report states.

Even more dramatic: The Qualitative Change

With this, the two professors also address the qualitative aspects of labor market change, i.e., the question: How is AI changing job requirements and training paths. A whole bouquet of new job titles is often listed here.

Salesforce, for example, has formulated ten new jobs. This ranges from AI ethicist, AI cybersecurity specialist, AI conversation designer, AI integration expert, and AI strategist to AI orchestrator. However, this is not reflected so differentiatedly in the new job offers. They generally speak of AI engineers or prompt engineer.

Biggest Changes in IT Jobs

The primary field of application for AI is naturally in the area of information technology. “The information and communication sector dominates AI job demand in Germany, far exceeding all other industries,” according to a study by PWC. The headhunters from Agency Partners write in a recent blog: “The job market for AI engineers in Germany is developing very dynamically. In just one week, a total of 132 new positions were advertised.”

The “AI Workforce Consortium,” which includes Accenture, Google, IBM, Indeed, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP, among others, has just published a relevant analysis. According to this, 78 percent of IT positions already require AI skills, and 70 percent of the fastest-growing ICT professions have a connection to AI.

Jobs related to AI governance (plus 150 percent) and AI ethics (plus 125 percent) are particularly in demand. However, there is also an acute shortage of skilled workers in generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, and AI security. The leading regions in Germany are the metropolitan areas of Berlin and Munich, respectively. Among the companies particularly active here are Microsoft, adesso, and Stackit, among others.

Is AI Penetrating All Professions?

By 2030, according to the WEF, two-thirds of company executives plan to hire employees with specific AI knowledge. Yasmin Weiß, a professor at the Technical University of Nuremberg, already sees this as a complete reshaping of the labor market. “The transformation of the world of work through AI is a change that has never been seen before in its breadth, speed, and inevitability; it completely reorders roles, tasks, and responsibilities,” she says about this development.

Christian Korff, VP Services, Strategy & Planning, Software and Strategic Sales at Cisco and Chairman of the Federal Expert Commission on Artificial Intelligence in the CDU Economic Council, expects comprehensive AI penetration in all professions. Contrary to the common belief that skilled trades will not experience any changes due to AI, he believes that “no heating installer, no roofer, no carpenter will be able to practice their profession in the future without the application of AI technology.”

A survey by the project “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Offensive for Skilled Trades (KIDiHa) in NRW” also concludes that while AI usage in skilled trades is still low, there is great interest in using AI for aspects such as quote generation, appointment scheduling, and documentation. KIDiHa is a project of the University of Applied Sciences for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (FHM), Fraunhofer IOSB-INA in Lemgo, and the Kreishandwerkerschaft Paderborn-Lippe, funded by the state of NRW.

Yasmin Weiß goes even a step further with her outlook: “Mosaic careers will become the new norm. Careers will no longer be linear but will consist of completely different building blocks and professional identities in the future.” She believes this also requires new competencies in the education system. “The key skill will be to adapt as quickly as we have never adapted to anything before. That is, learning to learn, adaptability, and the right mindset,” is her prognosis.

(dahe)