More Layoffs? AI To Replace Three Million Jobs By 2035: Study Reveals Sectors At High Risk

At a time when there has been a lot of chatter about AI improving at a rate of knots, there could be major ramifications, with around three million jobs at risk over the next decade, according to a report from UK-based National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). The report, published on Nov. 28, has warned that the rapid adoption of AI technologies may threaten to displace many workers in "high-risk declining" occupations.

Some of the sectors most vulnerable to this change include administrative, secretarial, customer service, trading, and machine operation roles. As per the NFER report, the transition of AI has accelerated in recent times, with labour market changes now occurring up to three times faster than initial projections.

On the flip side, demand for highly skilled professionals such as engineers, scientists, and educators is expected to rise as technology boosts productivity and increases workloads “at least in the short to medium term”.

This essentially means AI is proving to become far more useful in workspaces, with Nvidia founder Jensen Huang most recently speaking against managers who are promoting a culture of not using AI in a workplace.

This rapid adoption threatens to not only take over the jobs of experienced veterans but also to out-of-college freshers looking to kickstart their careers in the industry. Without any necessary qualification for emerging or established roles in the system, fresh graduates may find it difficult to make a case for hiring, especially with AI being equipped to finish most clerical tasks.

While the study does project the creation of approximately 2.3 million new jobs over the next decade, most of these opportunities will be concentrated in high-skilled professional sectors such as science, engineering, and law. This disparity between high and low-skilled workers could displace millions that are unable to make that transition.

The report also identifies six "essential employment skills" that will be critical for the future workforce: collaboration, communication, creative thinking, information literacy, organising and planning, and problem-solving. Researchers add that without immediate intervention to retrain workers, this transition may only get more difficult over time.