- The introduction of AI will force around 12 million workers to change jobs by 2030, a McKinsey partner said on Thursday.
- The job losses will affect four major sectors, including administration, customer service and manufacturing.
- However, automation is likely to impact 30% of the tasks in everyone's job.
There's no sugar coating it: AI will disrupt many jobs over the next few years.
Quirin Ellingrud, a senior partner and global research director at McKinsey, said at a company press conference this week that the technology could enable “12 million job transitions” between now and 2030. “That's roughly the same pace of job transitions that have occurred during the COVID pandemic.”
Ellingrud said he expects growth in healthcare and STEM fields, while McKinsey said about 85% of the jobs that AI could impact fall into four categories: administrative assistance, customer service and sales, food service, and production and manufacturing.
Many of these jobs involve repetitive tasks, data collection, and basic data processing. That could be addressed through automation, according to a McKinsey report co-authored by Elingrad, which estimates that about 11.8 million workers in shrinking occupations will need to move into new roles by 2030.
But everyone should be prepared for at least some change in their current role.
Between the widespread adoption of generative AI and what Ellingrud calls “old-fashioned automation,” roughly 30% of everyone's jobs will have to adapt to the changes that technology brings to the workplace.
