AI makes workers more precious, no less, according to a new report

Despite generalized fears that artificial intelligence can automate jobs and reduce employees of Salaries, AI actually makes people “more precious, no less”, revealed new research from the PWC professional service company.

“What makes people react in this environment is the speed of technological innovation,” said CNBC Make IT. “The reality is that technological innovation really evolves, very quickly. It evolves at a rate that we have never seen in a technological innovation before.”

“What the report in fact suggests is that AI creates jobs,” said Atkinson.

In fact, jobs and wages increase in “almost each” Occupation exposed to AI – or jobs that have tasks where technology can be used – including the most automatic, such as customer service workers or report.

“We know that each time we have an industrial revolution, there are more jobs created than lost. The challenge is that the skills that workers need for new jobs can be very different,” said Carol Stubbings, global sales director of Pwc UK, in the report.

“So the challenge, we think, is not that there will be no jobs. It is that workers must be ready to take them,” said Stubbings.

The report, which analyzed more than 800 million job announcements and thousands of financial reports of the company on six continents, challenged six common myths on the impact of AI:

Myth: AI has not yet had a significant impact on productivity.

However, the report has revealed that since 2022, productivity growth in industries “the best placed to adopt AI” has almost quadrupled, while falling slightly in the “least exposed” industries at AI, such as physiotherapy.

In particular, the industries most exposed to AI, such as software publishing, have shown growth three times higher of employees, according to PWC data.

Myth: AI can have a negative impact on workers’ salaries and negotiation power.

PWC data has shown that workers with AI skills are on average 56% higher than workers without these skills in the same profession, compared to 25% last year. In addition, wages increase twice as quickly in the industries that are most exposed to AI compared to the least exposed industries.

Myth: AI can lead to a decrease in work numbers.

The report revealed that if the professions with lower exposure to AI experienced high employment growth at 65% between 2019 and 2024, growth has remained robust – although slower – even in professions more exposed to technology (38%).

Myth: AI can exacerbate the inequalities of opportunities and wages for workers.

Unlike the fears that AI aggravates inequalities, the results of the report show that wages and employment are increasing for increasing jobs and automation by technology.

The report noted that the demand of employers of formal diplomas drops more quickly in the jobs exposed to AI, creating wider opportunities “for millions”.

Myth: AI can “destroy” the work it automates.

The report revealed that instead of that, AI can enrich automation jobs by freeing tedious tasks to practice more complex skills and decision -making. For example, data entry clerks can evolve towards a role of “greater value” such as data analysts, according to PWC.

Myth: AI can devalue the jobs it highly automates.

The data show that not only wages increase for jobs that are highly automatable, but that technology also reshapes these jobs to become more “complex and creative” and, ultimately, make people more precious.

The study offers another perspective: in a world where many countries have a drop in working populations, the softening of employment growth in the professions exposed to AI could even “be useful” and benefit these countries.

Improvement of productivity by AI can actually create a “multiplier effect” on available labor and satisfy the shortcomings that companies may not be able to fill otherwise, as well as business growth, said Atkinson.

“This is a prediction already supported by the productivity data that we see,” he added. “I think it could absolutely and will be a good thing.”

In the end, the study adopts the position that AI should be treated “as a growth strategy, not only as a strategy of efficiency”. Rather than using technology to reduce staff costs, companies should help their employees adapt and work together to create new opportunities, claim new markets and sources of income.

“It is essential to avoid the trap of the low ambition. Instead of limiting our objective to the automation of yesterday’s jobs, let’s create the new jobs and industries of the future,” said the report.

“AI, if used with imagination, could trigger a flowering of new jobs and new commercial models. For example, 2/3 of jobs in the United States today did not exist in 1940, and many of these new jobs were made as technological advances,” added the report.

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