PwC’s 2024 AI Jobs Barometer analysed half a billion job postings from 15 countries in order to find out how generative AI and other iterations of the technology are transforming the world of work. Five key figures from the study help tell the story.
4.8x
higher labour productivity growth in sectors most exposed to AI
27%
lower hiring growth in the roles that are most exposed to AI
25%
higher net change in skills required in AI-exposed occupations from 2019 to 2023
3x
higher growth
in hiring for jobs that require specialised
AI skills
25%
potential average wage premium for jobs requiring AI skills
Data from PwC’s AI Jobs Barometer suggests that AI is already making workers much more productive. Occupations in which many tasks can be performed by AI are experiencing nearly five times higher growth in productivity than the sectors with the least AI exposure. That’s good news for economies facing sluggish productivity gains. But increasing productivity means more than just doing the old things faster. It means finding new, AI-powered ways to create value. In fact, 70% of CEOs say that AI will significantly change the way their company creates, delivers and captures value over the next three years. Business leaders also need to maximise the productivity dividend responsibly, reskilling and redeploying workers whose jobs are impacted.
4.8x
higher labour productivity growth in sectors most exposed to AI
In occupations most exposed to AI, job openings are still growing, but much more slowly than in less-exposed fields. This finding lends credence to the observation that, instead of replacing jobs, AI appears to be ushering in a period of more gradual employment growth in the most exposed sectors. Though this may ease acute worries about job security among employees, managers still need to redouble their focus on upskilling the current workforce for an AI-enabled future (this is especially true of less-skilled employees, who in a recent PwC survey reported less awareness of AI’s potential impacts). This includes creating development opportunities, building trust and boosting transparency on how AI will affect the workplace.
27%
lower hiring growth in the roles that are most exposed to AI
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In occupations centred around work that’s readily augmented or replaced by AI, the skills demanded in job postings are changing faster than elsewhere. (For example, employers advertising jobs for financial analyst, an occupation heavily affected by AI, are adding and taking away skills at a higher rate than employers seeking, say, a fitness instructor.) Accelerated change comes with risks. As AI penetration deepens, managers need to ensure that governance structures, ethical guidelines and data security measures are keeping pace with the workplace changes engendered by the adoption of AI, especially GenAI. Getting the best from the technology will require workers to treat it as a fallible colleague whose work needs to be validated—requiring a role shift for many employees.
25%
higher net change in skills required in AI-exposed occupations from 2019 to 2023
The share of jobs that require specialised AI skills—such as building large language models and neural networks—is less than 1%. But those jobs have grown sevenfold since 2016, three times the rate of other job types. What’s more, those roles carry an outsized importance. AI specialists are best equipped to educate senior management on both the opportunities and the risks of AI, and they’ll know the right partners to work with in developing proprietary LLMs and other AI assets. Senior managers can begin to build their own brain trust—and hedge against job-market competition for specialists—by creating excitement internally around these hard skills through hackathons and other citizen-led initiatives.
3x
higher growth
in hiring for jobs that require specialised
AI skills
Not only are jobs that require specialised AI skills growing fast, there are evidently not enough people to fill them—at least if one is to judge from the pronounced wage premium commanded by these skills. Workers whose capabilities are in high demand are seldom oblivious to their own value, and this can make hiring and retention a challenge for managers. Attractive compensation, based on thorough market analysis, is key; so is building a culture that recognises AI specialists’ value to the company. For senior executives, that can mean bringing the IT function into higher-level decisions, including ones addressing strategic priorities such as productivity, profitability and new products.
25%
potential average wage premium for jobs requiring AI skills