The boom in jobs thanks to AI

There is some alarming news about artificial intelligence, and it would be foolish to hide it. In recent days, Anthropic has put forward some disturbing scenarios regarding the future of work: if AI were to rapidly become capable of performing almost all intellectual work, growth could skyrocket, but so too could unemployment amongst knowledge workers. It is a scenario, not a prediction. But it makes an impression, it makes for a headline, and it is frightening. Then there are other, less apocalyptic stories that nevertheless deserve to be highlighted with the same vigour. The Economist has done a simple yet surprising calculation: so far, in America, AI is said to have created around one million new jobs, compared with around 200,000 redundancies attributed to the technology since mid-2023. And it’s not just engineers and programmers. The rush to build data centres is creating demand for electricians, technicians, skilled workers, and experts in cooling, networks and energy. Across five sectors linked to the construction of AI infrastructure, employment has grown by around 320,000 more jobs than general trends would have suggested. LinkedIn also estimates 640,000 new jobs specifically linked to AI between 2023 and 2025.

Of course, there is another side to the story. Call-centre jobs are on the decline, the number of secretaries and administrative assistants is falling, and some repetitive tasks are being replaced. But this is precisely the point that is often overlooked in the doomsday narrative: technology does not merely change work by destroying it. It also changes it by creating jobs that did not previously exist, boosting productivity, reducing costs and increasing demand for other services. We do not know how it will end. We do, however, know how it began. And so far, the ‘apocalypse of work’ heralded by AI has not materialised. Whilst we wait for everything to go wrong, it would be useful to occasionally take note of what is going better than expected.