Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword, but it is fast becoming a major threat to the jobs of employees around the world. From the year 2023 till now, about 1 lakh to 1 lakh 20 thousand corporate jobs have been lost across the world directly due to changes and restructuring related to AI. Big companies are doing massive layoffs to reduce their expenses and promote AI and this is continuing. Big companies like Amazon, Meta, TCS have done large-scale layoffs in the last 2-3 years. This data is really surprising and clearly shows that there is going to be a huge change in the workforce in the coming times due to technological changes.
Layoffs continue in big companies
Big tech and corporate companies around the world have drastically reduced their existing workforce to increase investment in AI infrastructure. According to data from leading outplacement firms like Challenger, Gray and Christmas, AI has been directly attributed to the reduction of nearly 1 lakh corporate jobs by 2023. Big companies like Amazon, Meta and Block have significantly reduced their workforce while moving towards AI. Companies are now completely shifting towards AI operated models by reducing manpower in departments like administrative, clerk and IT support.
The growing impact of AI and automation has led to large-scale layoffs by small and large companies around the world, including India’s IT giant TCS reducing over 20,000 employees from its workforce by reducing entry-level hiring with the help of automation and co-pilots, while Microsoft laid off 15,000 to focus on its AI pipeline, Amazon cut down its organization by 15,000, and Amazon laid off 15,000 employees to focus on its AI pipeline. 14,000, and Meta has laid off 7,000 to 8,000 employees to develop its internal AI tools.
Similarly, Cisco laid off 4,000 to shift to AI-based operations, Salesforce laid off 4,000 as half of its customer support and sales work was done by AI, and Workday laid off 1,750 (8.5%) of its employees for AI investments. Among small and mid-level startups, Innovator laid off 340, crypto exchange Kraken laid off 150, and Dune Analytics laid off 25% of its staff citing the efficiency of AI.
Crisis looms over Indian IT sector
India’s IT sector, which once provided jobs to millions of youth, is now going through a major transformation due to AI. India’s leading IT companies like Cognizant and TCS have started changing their traditional business models. Cognizant has started eliminating old and repetitive jobs to save millions of dollars under its Project Leap. On the other hand, the country’s largest IT company TCS has reduced the mass campus hiring from colleges by more than 50 percent. Now Indian IT companies are focusing on the results of the project instead of increasing the number of people.
These sectors will be most affected
In this era of AI and automation, the biggest danger lies with those people who do the same or rule-based work every day. AI agents have started completely taking over jobs like customer support, data entry, basic secretarial and front desk. Banking and finance sectors such as Standard Chartered Bank have deployed chatbots in place of humans in their back office and human resources departments. The demand for junior tech roles and entry-level coding engineers has also decreased rapidly, as AI coding assistance can now complete basic coding and testing tasks in a matter of seconds.
The forecast till 2030 will scare you
Strict estimates from big organizations like the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Global Institute suggest that by the year 2030, around 92 million to 300 million jobs worldwide may be affected due to AI. According to Forrester’s estimate, in America alone, more than 10 million jobs may be lost forever, which is 6.1 percent of the total workforce there. Even in Europe, Morgan Stanley has talked about the loss of millions of jobs. If we talk about India, then here also about 1.8 crore jobs can come under the scope of AI automation, due to which more than 1 crore people may have to leave their old work and take training for new work.
Humans will still be needed for these tasks
Even though AI is eliminating many jobs, there are some areas where human brain and skills are no match. AI is not going to have any impact on strategic positions related to creative fields, leadership, change management and diplomacy. Along with this, jobs requiring deep physical skills like plumber, electrician and jobs related to human emotions like teaching and nursing will be completely safe. Experts believe that in this era of change, only those people will be able to survive who will upgrade themselves with time, because in the coming times, the demand for experts who can operate AI tools properly is going to increase a lot.
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