We've been repeatedly told artificial intelligence (AI) will take our jobs, a mantra that in recent years changed to someone able to use the technology being the preferred hire, but is that the case?
Research published by Australia's assistant minister for employment, Andrew Leigh, suggests it might not be, if data from large online employment site SEEK is to be believed.
In a talk to a joint conference on human capital, held by the the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Leigh presented job ads analysis done together with SEEK chief economist Matt Cowgill.
Despite AI being in the headlines non-stop, and seeing massive public interest particularly for large language models that can generate text and imagery, this has not translated into a bonanza for job seekers versed in the technology.
Instead, the SEEK data shows "AI jobs constitute a tiny share of advertised positions," Leigh said. Only 1 in 588 advertised roles were for AI, comprising a mere 0.17% of the total.
What's more, the share of job ads asking for AI skills has declined in the last two years; this year, only about 1 in 1000 descriptions of advertised roles contained the phrase "artificial intelligence," Leigh noted.
AI jobs pay better than their non-AI equivalents but adjusted for control factors such as location, the premium was just 6%. For 2023-24, the premium dropped to a mere 4%.
While the average salary for AI jobs in the 12 months to March this year was A$121,275, which is 31% more than for non-AI jobs, this reflects the fact such employment is overrepresented in occupations that pay well from the outset. This is regardless of whether or not AI skills are mentioned.
The research does not expound at length on why an AI jobs boom across the Tasman hasn't materialised. Leigh notes in retail and consumer products industries, roles with the AI technology requirement are non-existent.
Science, technology and research jobs on the other hand ask for AI skills, but again the share of job ads requiring that is low.
10 Comments
A few companies I know have hired AI experts to help them implement it. In the US JP Morgan has 2000 AI specialists and is training everyone on AI.
I think in NZ and Au - excepting some large corporates - it will take a long time for people to work out what to do with AI and how to use it - most will expect it included in their existing software rather than hiring experts to help with 'implementing AI'
We really need to see hard examples of how it will be used comercially - given the massive investment in NVIDIA and Co - there must be some high expectations
There's a difference between "working in AI" and "AI doing the work".
https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai
AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates - and soon there will be AI's to build and manage other AI's
Most tech in common use now belongs to the big US tech firms, so there won't be a lot of jobs outside of the US as those firms will keep those key workers close to home. Also US data and chip laws will ensure it.
It will be hard to quantify who has lost a job due to AI. If you search YouTube for people who have been displaced by AI there are not many. There is much talk of large companies intending to use AI to reduce workforce numbers yet you would think there would be new roles opening up to facilitate this. Maybe companies are just using AI as an excuse.
That really depends on the definition of AI. If it is relating to the current LLMs and image generators it is open to many, you don't need skills to type a query, you don't need to understand neural nets, you are not required to create & choose adequate appropriate training data and as we have seen hilariously you don't even need skills to assess or edit what it spits out.
There are many AI jobs but there are not keyword search "AI" jobs. Most design roles for instance use AI tools in apps like photoshop, games dev roles have significant AI, detection and analysis with sensors with manufacturing, security and processing, etc but none are keyword search "AI" roles.
Anyone who works with AI and even those who teach it know you do not use the term AI in a role or job description not unless you want marketing wank to tie in when advertising your position to others who are clueless about AI.
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