AI won’t take your job, but humans with AI skills will

AI as a driver of employment and skills generation

Although there are fears that AI and automation will lead to the loss of a large amount of jobs, the truth is that this technology will be an engine for job growth. According to Gartner, AI will create more jobs than it eliminates, reaching over two million net new jobs in 2025. 

As such, AI holds great potential to help solve skills and job challenges in South Africa. This presents a significant opportunity to help address the concerningly high rate of unemployment in South Africa, currently positioned as the highest in the world at 32.9% in the first quarter of 2023, ensuring that not only are more people able to participate in but also contribute to the national economy. This is particularly true for South Africa’s youth who are more often than not more technically and technologically inclined and yet continue to remain the most vulnerable within the labour market. Today, 4.9 million young people between the ages of 15 and 34 are unemployed. 

Meanwhile, by using AI as a tool to enhance the employee experience through personalised training, targeted support and timely feedback, organisations are able to ensure better learning outcomes for skills development. In doing so, both employers and employees can better safeguard job security in a digital future.

Labour force must develop AI skills to remain competitive

AI excels at making the work experience less complicated by simplifying monotonous and repetitive tasks. In this regard, it can be a great labour saver for employees who would much rather be able to prioritise creative and critical tasks during their work hours. As it happens, that same survey that showcased the workforce’s wariness to AI “stealing” their jobs found that 70% of people would delegate as much of their drudge work (such as finding the right information, summarising meetings and action items, and planning their day) as possible to AI to lessen their workloads. Additionally, 76% said they would be comfortable using AI for administrative tasks and 79% for analytical tasks.

And yet, South Africa’s limited AI skills, expertise and knowledge within the workforce continue to remain the biggest barrier to AI adoption despite all the benefits the technology brings to any organisation or industry. A recent survey found that at the senior management level more than 60% rated ‘low internal skill levels’ as the number one challenge facing AI adoption in the country. 

This is not stopping us from pursuing the rapid adoption of AI however. Matched with this increasing demand, the low level of AI skills leaves those with the right skills at the top of the food chain. Not only do they hold much more bargaining power, but by honing their AI skills, they ensure they always remain relevant in a constantly evolving landscape. It’s clear then that AI serves much better as a tool to empower people than to simply replace them, and South Africa’s workforce better take advantage of its enabling abilities to ensure they remain competitive in the job market because it will be people with the right skill sets who will take your job long before any machine does.

Find out about progress in digitising the public sector: