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Is the AI revolution only about job losses, or are we are missing the fine print here?
Is the AI revolution only about job losses, or are we are missing the fine print here?

May 9, 2025

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There is a lot of discussion around losing jobs due to AI/Gen AI and Automation. But as we look deeper the truth is that the benefits of this shift outweigh the risks. As most of the job displacement is happening in repetitive clerical job roles.

Many industry leaders are comparing this emergence of AI/Gen AI with the early days of the commercial internet and are highlighting that the businesses need to act fast or they risk falling behind. Over the years, technology has replaced a number of jobs that were in existence in the early 1900s. But new jobs were also created - there were no computer programmers in 1910 but currently we have millions of them. What was the key need then and is also the major requirement now, that is the need to gather the right set of skills.

A similar trajectory is being charted out for AI/Gen AI, and the rate at which the growth is happening in these domains, we can safely conclude that a thriving AI ecosystem will soon be an indispensable element for a country to be economically competitive.

 

Technology Developments Driving Business Transformation

Technological developments are reshaping both the jobs and the required skills. According to World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report-2025, 60% of employers across the globe expect broadening digital access to transform their business as well as the labour markets. This technological shift is primarily driven by AI/Gen AI and information processing technologies, and robots and autonomous systems.

Technology Trends Driving Business Transformation, 2025-30

(Share of Employers surveyed)

A graph with numbers and a bar

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report – 2025”

 

Technology Transformation is Creating More Jobs, while Some are also being Displaced.

According to the report by 2030, 170 million new jobs will be created, partially offset by displacement of 92 million current jobs, resulting in a net employment increase of 78 million constituting a structural labour market churn of 22% of the 1.2 billion formal.

Source: World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report – 2025”

These numbers highlight that with this shift towards AI, some jobs are being displaced but new jobs are also being created, this is clearly reflective in the fastest growing and fastest declining job roles (See charts below). Notably, most of fastest growing job roles are directly driven by AI Adoption, and many of these roles didn’t even exist a few years ago.

Fastest Growing and Fastest Declining Jobs, 2025-30

(Top Jobs by fastest net growth and net decline, projected by surveyed Employers)

A graph with a number of people in the background

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report – 2025”

Moreover, the fastest growing roles are seeing a lot of new job creation, whereas majority of the displacement is happening in the fastest declining jobs. These jobs which are of repetitive nature witnessed a decline driven by broadening digital access, AI and information processing technologies, and automation.

Job growth, 2025-30

(Projected job creation (blue) and displacement (purple) between 2025 and 2030, as a percentage of total current employment in the corresponding job role. The projected net growth or decline for each occupation over the next five years (diamonds) is calculated by subtracting total job displacement from total job creation)

 

     

Source: World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report – 2025”

 

New AI Roles are not Limited to the Tech Industry

Interestingly, this growth in new roles is not only on the technical side with some of the new roles such as AI ethics leads, prompt engineers, AI product strategists are cutting across industries.

It is not only about hiring data scientists and ML engineers but roles which have intersection of various subject matter expertise from business to design to ethics. Some examples of these roles include AI risk and governance specialists, AI product managers, AI ethicists, Decision Engineers – who design workflows where AI and machines take decision together.

timeline

 

Skilling the Need of the Hour

With these changing times we need more AI talent, which highlights the immediate need to focus on upskilling and reskilling in the right set of technical and professional skills. What we also need are the more adaptive leaders who can think with AI – strategically, creatively and responsibly.

So, should we all be fearful of this AI revolution? The answer is “NO,” but we cannot be complacent, we are amid a major technological revolution, and we need to upgrade ourselves and embrace this shift.

Stay tuned for my next blog as we discover the key skills in demand and what are countries doing on the reskilling front as we move forward on the AI trajectory.

References:

World Economic Forum “Future of Jobs Report - 2025”

AI Is Creating New Roles and Skills in Data & Analytics

Alex Wang


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Neha Jain
Senior Analyst

Neha Jain

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