Dive Brief:
- Three in 10 companies plan to replace employees with AI next year as the technology drives increased automation in the workplace, impacting industries from information technology to accounting, resume writing firm AIResumeBuilder.com said in a report published last week.
- Among business leaders anticipating AI-related layoffs, 59% said the technology will replace 10% or more of their current workforce, according to the survey results. One in 10 respondents said they expect AI to replace 50% or more of their workforce.
- As AI adoption rises, “leaders need to think about how their people can still be leveraged to be strategic without AI having to replace them,” Rachel Serwetz, a career advisor at AIResumeBuilder.com, said in an interview. AI can be used to simply automate monotonous tasks and free people up to be more strategic and pursue new projects, creating opportunities for business expansion, she said.
Dive Insight:
U.S. employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October, up 175% compared with the year-earlier period, in part due to AI-driven automation, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report last week.
Among private sector employers, cost-cutting was the top reason cited for job reductions, leading to 50,437 announced layoffs. AI was the second-most cited factor in the private sector, triggering 48,414 job cuts.
Despite AI’s rapid rise across industries, most finance leaders are still in the early phases of using the technology in their own functions, according to a study released in September by leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder.
“CFOs are clear-eyed about AI’s promise, but they’re equally aware that getting there will take time,” Arun Dhingra, global head of Egon Zehnder’s CFO & Audit Chair Practice, said in a press release at the time. “We see finance leaders taking thoughtful, phased approaches when it comes to adopting the technology — focusing on building literacy and capability among their teams so AI can augment human expertise rather than replace it.”
Nearly 1 in 5 CFOs polled by Egon Zehnder said they had eliminated roles as a result of AI implementation, most commonly in accounting (88%), followed by FP&A (38%) and treasury (33%). “While job reductions remain limited, many leaders are redefining responsibilities to allow teams to focus on higher-value, more strategic work,” the report said.
The industries most likely to have AI-related layoffs next year include information technology, computer software, financial services, accounting, human resources, manufacturing and retail, according to the AIResumeBuilder.com study.
Respondents reported that customer service, administrative or clerical, and IT and technical support roles are most at risk of being automated.
AIResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,250 U.S. business leaders.
