Wall Street CEOs admit the reality for American jobs
The dam is breaking. In a terrifying admission that signals a seismic change in corporate America, the CEO of one of the biggest carmakers in the US has broken cover to admit the devastating effects AI will have on the workforce. While some execs have attempted vague assurances for American workers, Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley has predicted the rise of AI will take a sledgehammer to jobs.
'Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.,' Farley told author Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week. 'AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind.' Bosses have been cautious about publicly admitting the reality of how many jobs could be cut from their companies as a result of AI. That tide appears to be turning however, and Farley's comments are among the most transparent.
It comes after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced brutal workforce cuts late last month as the company continues to implement AI in its operations. While AI's impact will not be uniform, it is likely to affect administrative jobs that are automatable, such as data entry and processing, telemarketing, customer service, scheduling and manufacturing assembly lines. Jassy said he plans to reduce the company's corporate workforce over the next few years as the tech will make certain roles redundant.
He told employees in a note seen by the Wall Street Journal that AI was a once-in-a-lifetime technological advancement and it has already transformed how Amazon operates. The sentiment was echoed by the CEO of Anthropic, who recently warned AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. Dario Amodei called on other business leaders to stop 'sugarcoating' the truth and to prepare for the fact that US unemployment could rise to between 10 and 20 percent.
Some have taken up the call, including Micha Kaufman, CEO of the freelance marketplace Fiverr, who told staff that they will have to accept that AI will change their jobs and the business itself. 'This is a wake-up call,' he wrote in a memo. 'It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person — AI is coming for you.'
Shopify recently announced that it would not be making any new hires unless managers first proved that the job could not be done by AI. Marianne Lake, head of JPMorgan Chase's consumer and community business arm, told investors in May that she expected to shed 10 percent of her staff in the next few years and replace them with AI tools.
'We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,' Microsoft said in a statement. Last month Procter & Gamble, which makes diapers, laundry detergent, and other household items, announced it would cut 7,000 jobs , or about 15 percent of non-manufacturing roles.
In a change of fortunes, blue collar jobs appear to be more protected while college graduates with white-collar jobs in tech, finance, law, and consulting are taking the hit. Entry-level jobs are vanishing the fastest — stoking fears of recession and a generation of disillusioned graduates left stranded with CVs no one wants. College grads are now much more likely to be unemployed than others, official data shows.
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