Artificial intelligence will affect 8.9 million workers, who will lose their jobs in the coming years. On top of that, there are also ‘deferred jobs’: roles that organisations delay or choose not to create due to expectations surrounding AI—these create severe recruitment bottlenecks and prolong job searches for roughly 5 million people, disproportionately affecting entry-level job seekers.
The good news is that, thanks to AI, 10.6 million jobs will be created by 2030, according to Gartner VP Analyst Helen Poitevin. So, if we exclude the deferred jobs, there will be a net increase of 1.7 million jobs. These are global figures, excluding China and India.
The technology sector will be hit hardest, with nearly 70 per cent of the workforce having high exposure to AI. AI-related job losses are projected to account for 1.8 per cent of the global technology workforce, amounting to around 400,000 redundancies alongside some 1.5 million deferred jobs. According to Gartner, however, around 1.9 million new jobs will be created in the tech sector.
Reskilling will affect 20 per cent to 40 per cent of workers globally, requiring them to fundamentally rethink their workflows and interactions with stakeholders.
Early-career professionals face the greatest hurdles because routine entry-level tasks are being automated. Addressing this requires stronger apprenticeship programmes and broader practical experience.