How AI is changing the job market - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service

0:00 I have now been looking for a job for a year,

0:03 with more than 200 applications sent.

0:06 How much longer will I be kind of stuck in this limbo?

0:10 I guess between school and, you know, adulthood.

0:14 Most people I know have been impacted by layoffs at least once, if not twice.

0:19 Hey, it's Hannah here.

0:20 Welcome to What in the World, the podcast for all of your news,

0:23 trends and talking points from the BBC World Service.

0:27 Applying for jobs is really tough.

0:29 You've got to scour the internet for ads and then put

0:32 in all of that time and mental energy on an application,

0:35 and that's before you've even found out if you've got an interview.

0:38 But some people have been finding that process even harder than normal.

0:42 They've been putting in loads of applications and never hearing back.

0:46 And we've all heard the chat about AI taking our jobs.

0:49 And there have been some recent studies that suggest that AI is

0:52 making it harder for younger people and grads to get their first jobs.

0:56 So is AI after your job and what can you do to adapt?

1:04 I'm speaking to Nathalie Jimenez, a BBC reporter in New York.

1:07 Hey, Nathalie.

1:08 Welcome back.

1:08 Hi.

1:09 Thank you so much for having me.

1:11 Okay, so firstly this chat about AI taking entry level jobs.

1:15 How big of a problem is it?

1:17 What do the studies say?

1:18 So I mean the quick answer is yes.

1:21 We're going through an AI disruption phase.

1:24 That's the phrase that you're often going to hear.

1:26 So yes, AI is starting to replace jobs and particularly entry level jobs.

1:31 Those are the first on the chopping block.

1:33 And that's because they're often administrative,

1:37 they're digital, they're repetitive.

1:40 They're basically jobs that AI can learn quite easily,

1:43 make more efficient, go faster.

1:46 That's very attractive to companies that are starting to look to cut costs.

1:50 So yes, young people are suffering the most.

1:52 And we see that in the numbers too.

1:54 Stanford did a study and it said that since late 2022,

1:58 right when ChatGPT went big, people aged 22 to 25 have seen a 13% drop

2:04 in jobs in roles that are easy for AI to handle.

2:08 So I'm talking software development, marketing, customer service.

2:12 Meanwhile, older workers are not affected in the same way.

2:15 So that's why the study essentially calls

2:17 young people 'canaries in the coal mine'.

2:20 There's a real problem because if people aren't being accepted at entry level,

2:24 then they can't progress up the chain and then they can't get the expertise

2:27 to get to those kind of more secure mid and top level jobs,

2:30 the ones where they have those soft skills

2:33 that can't be imitated or replaced by AI.

2:36 And of course, this isn't the only thing

2:38 that's affecting the US job market at the moment.

2:41 What are some of the other things that have been going on for young people?

2:44 Right.

2:44 So this is kind of part of a bigger shift.

2:46 So we obviously have macroeconomic factors.

2:48 So after the pandemic there was a chilling in the job market.

2:51 Basically people are hiring less.

2:53 So that's one of the issues that we're dealing with too.

2:55 There is an oversaturated market.

2:57 More people have college degrees so there

3:00 are more people applying for administrative jobs,

3:03 less so, you know, jobs in in retail.

3:06 Those jobs in retail, in healthcare,

3:08 the ones that need a little bit more human interaction,

3:11 they're still going, people are still hiring.

3:14 Whereas the ones that need maybe, you know,

3:17 a college degree in the sense of computer science, that was a job that was very,

3:21 very in demand a few years ago, now that's starting to decline.

3:25 So, yeah, the macroeconomic shifts right now in the economy, it's not great.

3:30 And then AI and then an oversaturated market, it's like the perfect storm.

3:35 And let's hear from some of you guys who got in touch and are looking for work.

3:38 This is Zola in France.

3:40 I work in the fields of arts and culture.

3:43 I hold two master's degrees, one in political and social sciences

3:47 and another one in cultural policy and administration.

3:50 I have now been looking for a job

3:53 for a year with more than 200 applications sent.

3:57 I think that on my part.

3:59 There are several frustrations that I'd like

4:02 to highlight within this job hunting process.

4:05 The lack of formal answers from employers,

4:07 the disregard for experiences linked to internship or traineeships,

4:12 or even voluntary contexts.

4:14 I do not believe that AI should or can truly replace an artist or a playwright,

4:20 but it has been increasingly used to do so in several cases.

4:24 And so for me, it is a growing political and ecological concern.

4:28 And we got this from Laura in the US.

4:30 I just know so many people applying to jobs right now.

4:34 And right, like every company, not even tech anymore, right?

4:38 The federal government, entertainment, media, consulting,

4:41 finance, they're all laying off people.

4:44 So every industry is, you know, getting impacted.

4:48 And right when more people are laid off, more people are looking for jobs,

4:53 but there just aren't enough spots for everyone.

4:55 I think it's so tough for young people to find jobs right now.

4:59 Because right when companies are laying people off,

5:01 they're usually laying off the most junior people, right?

5:05 So they lay off the 20 somethings who just started working, right?

5:09 That's what happened to me.

5:10 When they laid off my team at Google, it was all the newest hires, right?

5:15 So everyone, basically everyone in their 20s got let go.

5:18 I feel like most people I know have been impacted by layoffs at least once,

5:23 if not twice, if not twice.

5:25 And here is Tiffany, a recent graduate from New York.

5:28 The company that I worked at, I worked

5:30 at Apple when I was an intern last summer.

5:33 They didn't have the headcount for another, like a full time employee.

5:38 And there are a lot less new grad opportunities.

5:40 There used to be more specific new grad

5:43 programmes out there for seniors to apply to.

5:46 Sometimes I'll feel more motivated and hopeful,

5:49 especially if I've been interviewing or like I'm

5:52 in like the later ends of an interview stage,

5:55 I'll start feeling more hopeful, like imagining myself in this job already.

6:00 But other times, you know, like,

6:02 I'll be like waking up in the middle of the night or like,

6:05 I can't sleep and I'm just thinking about how much

6:07 longer will I be kind of stuck in this limbo,

6:11 I guess, between school and, you know, adulthood.

6:16 So it is a little sad sometimes, but I think it helps that I'm not alone.

6:20 And there are a lot of other people going through the same thing.

6:23 And talking about what some of the big companies have said, you know,

6:25 I've seen things from Duolingo and Amazon talking about how how

6:29 AI is going to change the way they hire in the future.

6:31 What is the message being sent out from these big companies right now?

6:34 So Amazon's CEO was pretty direct in a message

6:38 he sent to employees back in June.

6:40 He basically said that generative AI is going to reduce

6:45 the corporate workforce over the next few years quite significantly.

6:48 And that doesn't mean they're not going to hire anyone new.

6:51 They're still going to bring in people to teams

6:54 that are maybe a little bit more AI heavy.

6:57 But they expect to need fewer humans in general,

7:00 and that's going to land on youngest staff the most,

7:03 again, because they're doing these repetitive jobs.

7:07 But the ones that need less judgment, less critical thinking,

7:10 that's going to be replaced by AI,

7:12 that's where they're going to want to save money.

7:15 At Duolingo, the CEO has said pretty much the same thing.

7:18 They're AI first now.

7:21 They already cut contractors, they're striking employees.

7:25 And not only that, but they're actually

7:27 using AI as part of their evaluation process.

7:30 So they're looking at how their employees are using AI

7:34 in their day to day to make themselves more efficient.

7:36 So it's not just enough to do your tasks well.

7:39 The company now wants you to prove that you're using AI,

7:43 and you're thinking about how to improve the work you're doing with AI tools.

7:48 So before they approve new hires,

7:50 managers are also going to have to convince basically the company

7:55 why AI can't do it and why they need a human.

7:59 But AI is also changing the application process for people going for these jobs.

8:05 Both in terms of how like the computers are now choosing,

8:08 sorting through the CVs, sorting through tapes that people might send in.

8:12 So actually choosing who might make it to interview,

8:15 as well as people using AI to be able to write their CVS

8:19 and applications and making it harder for them to to stand out.

8:22 Yeah, exactly.

8:23 I mean, basically the job application process,

8:26 and you'll hear this from a lot of young hires,

8:28 people in the workforce, that it is changing.

8:31 Basically, when you used to apply for a job,

8:35 people used to be involved pretty quickly.

8:37 They used to look at your resume.

8:40 They used to maybe give you a call, skim, you know, your skills.

8:44 But now for lots of companies, the first reader is an algorithm.

8:48 It's AI.

8:49 Resumes are getting scanned by AI for keywords.

8:52 Some firms are using AI chatbots to ask screening questions.

8:56 Some AI programmes are even analysing video interviews to score your answers.

9:01 So by the time a human actually looks at your application,

9:04 you've already been ranked by a machine.

9:07 So essentially, AI is going to be part

9:11 of the most important segment of the hiring process, which is the beginning.

9:15 So a lot of people, even in my close circle,

9:18 the way that you're applying for a job has changed.

9:20 Like you're going to look at the keywords that you need to put

9:23 in your application to make sure that you

9:25 get flagged or chosen by these AI tools.

9:28 It's very formulaic.

9:29 That's why a lot of my friends are like,

9:31 'I don't want to write a cover letter, I just want to, you know,

9:33 go into my resume and put in those keywords that I need to get chosen' because

9:36 they know that a person is not going

9:38 to look at their application until much later.

9:41 Now let's hear the view from India.

9:43 I'm speaking to Varun Mayya,

9:44 who's a YouTuber and founder of the generative AI company Aeos.

9:48 Hi.

9:49 Hi.

9:49 Thank you for inviting me.

9:50 Yeah, it's great to speak to you.

9:52 So you're based in India.

9:54 How is AI affecting people's jobs there,

9:57 and which are the industries that are most affected?

10:00 To be very honest, I don't think AI has really affected too many jobs in India,

10:04 except for a little bit of exposure in software in India.

10:07 Salaries aren't really, really high,

10:09 so even if you are using a tool, an AI tool,

10:12 you'd still want a human being to sort of use that tool and run it,

10:16 because the person has accountability, the person has context.

10:19 But there's also this huge section of people

10:21 in India and all over the world that, you know, for lack of a better word,

10:26 their only job is to translate somebody else's instructions.

10:29 Somebody else has made those decisions, has decided how it's going to be solved,

10:32 and they're just translating that into code.

10:35 You know, the original use case for transformer was-

10:38 the technology behind LLMs (Large Language Models)- was for translation.

10:41 So if you are doing that last piece,

10:43 somebody else has come up with the idea, somebody else has written the spec,

10:46 somebody else is telling you this is exactly how you need to solve it,

10:49 this is the algorithm you need to use,

10:51 and then you're writing the code for it, yeah, then you're in trouble.

10:54 I think we've had zero people in the team,

10:57 in my avatar team, that have lost their jobs.

11:00 So we've actually had more work and a larger team.

11:02 In fact, the average creator, about two million followers across Instagram,

11:06 YouTube, would have a team about ten, 12 people.

11:09 Our team is slightly larger now.

11:10 It's about 16 people because the quantity of work.

11:12 We're also in a very hyper connected world.

11:14 So this is not ten years ago where you'd get like three or four opportunities.

11:18 Now you're getting like 30, 40 opportunities a month.

11:19 You want to take all of them on.

11:21 So we keep expanding the team to absorb some of those opportunities.

11:25 Varun, I want to bring it back to grads and grad

11:28 jobs because there is relatively high youth unemployment in India.

11:32 I think it's about 16% of under 24.

11:35 So I want to ask you, given all of the changes to the job

11:38 market and the technology that we have available,

11:40 and particularly these roles that we've talked about,

11:42 the ones that could easily be replaced by AI,

11:46 what advice would you give to a grad or a student

11:50 or a young person trying to get a job right now?

11:52 In all of these changes.

11:54 What I found to be really great for youngsters is to look at some,

11:58 is to look at an industry that's growing really fast,

12:00 where there's increasing demand,

12:02 but low supply of good talent or the supply of tools,

12:06 you know, are not very good.

12:08 The tools are not very competent at, you know,

12:11 and you feel you have a shot at beating those tools,

12:14 not just today, but for the next two or three years.

12:16 Varun, thank you so much for speaking to us.

12:17 Thank you for for having me.

12:18 Nathalie, what would your message be to people

12:20 who are graduating now in this ever changing world?

12:23 See, AI as your co-pilot.

12:25 AI is going to take care of the menial tasks, the repetitive tasks.

12:28 Now this is actually giving you an opportunity, for example, in college,

12:32 to maybe study things that are a little bit more considered soft skills.

12:36 So again, you're going to study computer science.

12:39 Why don't you go into philosophy?

12:40 Why don't you go into psychology?

12:42 What basically experts are saying right now is what's valuable are soft skills,

12:47 critical thinking, judgment, essentially what makes us human.

12:51 So if you can tap into that, if you can tap into what AI doesn't have,

12:56 what we can add to the AI process,

12:58 you're actually maybe going to get a more fulfilling job experience.

13:01 And again, industries like the health care industry or even

13:05 the green tech industry and what I mean by that is like,

13:09 you know, let's say solar panel construction,

13:11 you're going to want to go to these industries that are using AI,

13:15 but that also need people in order to think about the ethics of it,

13:19 in order to think about how to improve these AI systems,

13:21 we're really going to need to tap into who we are as humans

13:25 and what makes us human in order to stay competitive in the job market.

13:29 Nathalie.

13:30 Thank you.

13:31 Thank you.

13:32 That's it from us.

13:33 I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

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13:47 I'm Hannah, this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.

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