①According to an EY survey, feedback from 500 U.S. corporate executives indicated that only 17% of companies that achieved productivity gains through the introduction of AI subsequently chose to cut jobs; ②The EY survey also showed that 34% of respondents are hiring talent with specific AI-related professional skills, indicating that the widespread adoption of AI is simultaneously leading to a skills gap in the labor market.
Cailian Press News, December 16 (edited by Xia Junxiong) The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked extensive discussions about how this technology will impact the overall job market. As companies achieve efficiency improvements through AI, whether they will follow up with layoffs has become a focal point of attention.
However, according to EY’s latest release of the 'US AI Pulse Survey,' feedback from 500 surveyed U.S. corporate executives revealed that among companies achieving productivity increases due to the introduction of AI, only 17% subsequently opted for layoffs.
Dan Diasio, EY’s Global Consulting AI Leader, stated in an interview: 'We often hear claims that companies would directly reflect the benefits brought by AI on their financial statements, such as cost reduction or simply laying off employees.'
But he added: 'The data we collected from these 500 executives does not support such claims. Such occurrences happen in less than one-fifth of cases; more common practices involve reinvesting those gains back into the business.'
This year, the slowdown in the U.S. labor market has triggered market concerns over an 'AI-driven massive layoff wave,' with many large employers indeed announcing significant layoff plans.
At the press conference following last week’s Federal Reserve interest rate meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Powell, when discussing AI and its impact on layoffs, noted that AI seems to have had some influence on current layoff conditions but has yet to become a dominant factor.
However, he also pointed out that it is hard to ignore explicit company announcements attributing layoffs to AI.
'You can’t overlook those large-scale layoff announcements, along with some companies stating they will not hire employees for an extended period and attributing the reasons to AI,' Powell said. 'These phenomena are clearly happening.'
The EY survey also showed that 34% of respondent companies are hiring talent with certain AI-related professional skills, indicating that the widespread adoption of AI is simultaneously leading to a skills gap in the labor market.
Not all AI transformations have achieved the desired results. Take Klarna, a Swedish fintech company, as an example. The company had laid off staff and halted new hiring but subsequently had to rehire some of the previously laid-off employees due to customer complaints about AI-driven customer service.
Aside from layoffs, an EY survey found that 96% of respondents observed productivity gains brought by AI; 56% of respondents stated that this technology “has led to significant, measurable improvements in overall financial performance.”
Moreover, 47% of respondents indicated that they reinvested the benefits of productivity gains back into their business operations, while 42% said they used the proceeds to develop new AI capabilities.
Another 41% stated that they are leveraging the gains brought by AI to strengthen their cybersecurity systems.
Diasio warned that companies diving headlong into AI solely for cost-cutting purposes, rather than using it as a tool for differentiation, may risk facing the commoditization of services or goods.
He said, “The key question is: do we want to do the same things with fewer resources, or do we want to do more valuable things with the same resources?”
Editor/Stephen
