In spite of reports projecting massive job loss from AI, the future could involve deeper human-machine partnerships

New research released this week from multiple sources suggests that artificial intelligence could reshape the job market in the coming years, sparking fear of widespread jobs loss as AI plays a greater role across business. Yet that’s not the entire story as the technology could lead to a greater emphasis on uniquely human skills that create new opportunities alongside the disruption.
First, the bad news: A new report from the World Economic Forum released this week suggested that AI (and other macro trends) could lead to a loss of 92 million jobs worldwide by 2030. At first blush, that’s a staggering number, but it’s important to remember that the report also emphasizes that as people adjust to the new reality, there could be new jobs in the future, perhaps different from how we think of work now, or at least jobs could be concentrated in different areas.
While some people think that could point to low-skill and easily automated jobs, another report from Bloomberg Intelligence that came out this week suggested that knowledge workers might not be spared, predicting a loss of 200,000 jobs in financial services alone.
The good news is that the WEF report ultimately projects there will be 170 million new jobs created during this time as the future workforce shifts to skills related to AI and data, as well as human-centric skills such as leadership, social influence, empathy and critical thinking to thrive in the changing landscape.
At the same time, Workday released a report measuring current employee attitudes towards AI and presented a much more positive view of the technology as it plays a broader role inside companies. The survey found that 93% of active users of AI technology, meaning they are using it regularly in their work, believe AI helps free up human capacity for more meaningful work around strategy and problem solving. Workday’s research found the top uses of AI today involve data analysis, fraud detection and HR recruitment processes.

It’s worth noting that the more people used AI tools as part of their jobs, the more optimistic they were about how AI would impact their jobs in the future with a sentiment score of 4.23 out of 5 from those same active users. That number dropped fairly significantly for folks thinking about using AI in the next 12 months to 3.89 out of 5. Jim Stratton, chief technology officer at Workday, believes the data suggests that the more employees actually engage with AI tools, the more likely they are to see the power to help them do their jobs better.
"We do see very strongly already where employees are leveraging AI to get work done more efficiently, and that allows them to focus on higher level, strategic or other more human-centric work that they do within their roles,” Stratton told FastForward.
Even more importantly perhaps, the survey found that people believe uniquely human skills will become critical as jobs change in the coming years. “Uniquely human skills such as ethical decision-making, empathy, relationship building, and conflict resolution are viewed as critical for success in an AI-driven economy,” the report found.
The WEF report found people predicting that similarly uniquely human skills will be most desirable in the coming year. Analytical thinking topped the list of core skills for employees followed by resilience, flexibility and agility and leadership and social influence. Creative thinking and motivation and self-awareness rounded out the top five.

Stratton acknowledges that certain jobs will be automated away, but he still sees the technology as a net positive, and that it’s important to start to concentrate on newer skill sets. “There are certainly types of work that are going to be easier to automate over time, but I think that really highlights the need to focus on re-skilling, up-skilling and focusing on, as the research shows, those things that are for the foreseeable future anyway, uniquely human skills that we're really good at that help us get the work done that we need to do.”
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