Leaders should focus on reskilling to prepare their workforce for AI’s impact

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become a force to be reckoned with. In just over five years, its global annual revenue has grown from US$10.1 billion in 2018 to US$94.41 billion in 2024 according to global analyst and advisory leader Omdia. It's growing so fast, in fact, that its total worldwide market size is estimated to exceed US$800 billion by 2030.

For all its positives—the way it’s revolutionizing entire industries, enhancing productivity, and shaping the future of technology—a palpable fear has also emerged. This apprehension primarily stems from job security concerns alongside existential risks, ethics, and the unintended consequences of our desire to continue innovating. But does AI actually cost jobs, or does it instead add to them (or both)?

AI isn’t stealing jobs, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore it

At SkyHive, we don’t necessarily agree with the argument of AI “stealing” jobs. It’s tiring and often drags on without evidence or new insight. But at the 2023 OECD Employment Outlook, a virtual event called, “How AI Might Change Our Jobs & What We Can Do About It”, the discussion dispelled the status quo as panelists offered a lot of interesting food for thought.

SkyHive Founder and CEO Sean Hinton was one of these panelists, alongside a Member of the European Parliament, an Oxford professor, and a leading expert on how AI affects people with disabilities. He gave several key takes during the webcast, which we’re going to explore in more detail:

• Never in the world’s history has an innovation or technology shrunk the world’s labor market.

• In the short term, AI doesn’t appear to be causing large-scale job loss. Looking further out, AI has the potential to automate not just tasks, but systems and processes. This could impact a variety of jobs, whether high- or low-skilled. At the same time, it will create new jobs. We’ve already seen this happen in other areas such as alternative energy.

• When we consider the impact of AI on jobs, remember that in some sectors like manufacturing and cybersecurity, there’s acute competition for talent right now. Everything should be examined in the context of a skills shortage. “There’s a massive amount of demand for jobs in manufacturing,” says Hinton.

The real impact of AI on jobs

This question of whether AI will “replace” jobs is impossible to answer at present. In the short term, we’re seeing an obvious impact of AI on jobs in the context of task replacement. These tasks, which are components of job roles, are being replaced by AI systems that can augment human work by taking over repetitive tasks.

AI might cost some jobs in the long term, but it’s far too soon to say for certain. As AI continues to evolve and become more advanced, it may well have the potential to automate tasks and entire processes and systems. This could lead to significant job displacement in the future, and the key to mitigating this will be taking proactive steps in education, policy making, and corporate strategy (e.g., reskilling) to ensure that the workforce is prepared.

Task replacement vs. job replacement

The trend that we’re seeing at the moment is that AI is more likely to replace tasks within jobs rather than entire job roles. In administrative roles, for example, AI can be used to automate repetitive tasks like data entry and scheduling. This frees up employees’ time which can then be focused on more important responsibilities.

The scale of this impact will of course vary across different sectors. Some job roles will naturally be more susceptible to automation than others. In manufacturing, for example, some roles are inherently prone to automation due to their repetitive and process-driven nature. AI-powered robots and algorithms can effectively handle tasks such as assembly, packaging, and inventory management. In contrast, sectors where human interaction and creative problem-solving are fundamental (e.g., education, healthcare, and creative industries) will likely see less automation.

Creation of complementary roles

We’re also going to see AI creating new complementary roles that did not exist before, especially in AI system maintenance, data, compliance, and oversight. These roles will focus on managing, maintaining, and improving AI systems to ensure they function correctly, ethically, and in line with new regulations such as the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and the U.S. AI Bill of Rights.

AI ethics specialists, for example, will be needed to address the moral implications of AI decisions while AI trainers will be needed to teach AI systems using vast datasets. Additionally, roles in data science and machine learning engineering will become all the more important for contributing to the development and implementation of AI systems.  

A need for reskilling

As AI augments job roles and replaces tasks, the nature of many roles is shifting towards more strategic and complex responsibilities. Workers need to acquire new skills to handle more advanced tasks, many of which will require the ability to work cohesively alongside AI systems. Going back to our example of administrative assistants, these people will need to take on more project management and coordination tasks that AI cannot easily replace.

The impact that AI will have on different sectors will mean that in many cases, the need for reskilling will be highly sector-specific. In manufacturing, for example, AI transforms production lines with robots and automated systems. Workers in this sector therefore need to learn to operate, program, and maintain these machines. Meanwhile, workers in finance will need to learn to integrate AI tools into their strategies alongside the proliferation of AI-driven analytics and automated trading.

Preparing your workforce for AI

It’s easy to say that AI and automation are transforming work. But what do the statistics say? Some of them are quite alarming. Research by McKinsey, for example, has found that one in 16 workers may have to change occupations by 2030 across eight major economies, representing roughly 100 million people. It’s not plain sailing for everyone else, though; 40% of workers who remain in their current occupations will need to reskill due to the impact of AI. These numbers grow massively over time.

Faced with this, talent teams and learning and development teams need to act by implementing plans for reskilling their workforce in response. This is easier said than done and begins with using real-time skills intelligence to understand the workforce at a granular level. Teams can achieve this by leveraging the very same AI they’re preparing their workforce to capture and analyze labor market activity as it happens. One example is quantum labor analysis, an emerging methodology that uses AI to examine the labor market at its most granular level—skills.

Real-time skills intelligence also enables teams to forecast future skills demand. With many workers currently occupying roles that might not exist in the same way in just a few years, talent leaders need a way to connect their workers to reskilling pathways i) keep these people in employment and ii) bridge skills gaps. This can only be done when organizations have a clear view of their existing skills inventories and the skills that they need—and that clear view is what skills intelligence provides.

Listen to the full discussion

There’s a lot we can talk about when it comes to the future of work and the impact that the likes of AI and digital transformation are having. We would encourage anybody who resonates with what we’ve discussed here to watch the OECD virtual event, which can be accessed here.

If you’re not familiar with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, it’s an international organization whose goal is to “shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity, and wellbeing for all.”

Similarly, if you’re not familiar with SkyHive, we’d love to hear from you so that we can tell you how our ethical AI platform is providing opportunities for workers all around the world at a time when AI is shaping the future of work.