International Business Machines (IBM) Corp. Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna in an interview with Bloomberg stated the company is expected to pause hiring for roles it believes can be replaced with AI.
Krishna suggests that hiring in back-office functions, especially human resources could be suspended or slowed. Currently, 26,000 workers are employed in non-customer-facing jobs in the company.
“I could easily see 30 per cent of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” said Krishna, whose estimate means that roughly 7,800 employees might receive the sack.
Mundane HR tasks such as providing employment verification letters, and moving employees between departments will be fully automated, according to Krishna, However, few of the HR functions such as evaluating workforce productivity and composition will not be replaced over the next decade.
Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh had earlier stated that new productivity and efficiency steps are expected to drive $2 billion a year in savings by the end of 2024.
IBM fires 3,900 workers
IBM, considered the world’s largest industrial research organisation currently employs nearly 260,000 workers. The decision to pause hiring by IBM comes a few months after it announced it was laying off over 3,900 employees.
In January, the US-based company said it was letting go of the employees due to missing its annual cash target and as part of larger asset divestments. IBM’s 2022 cash flow was $9.3 billion, below its target of $10 billion, due to higher-than-expected working capital needs.
According to reports, by the time the layoff process is complete, nearly 5,000 IBM employees would have lost their jobs. However, according to Krishna, the company is still hiring talent and despite the firings, it added 7,000 people to its workforce in the first quarter.
ALSO READ | IBM joins other tech giants in mass firings, will lay off 3,900 employees
AI’s emergence and existential threat for workers
It was always feared that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will one day start taking away human jobs and looks like the countdown has started. Within a few months of Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT making its debut, the advancement in the AI field has caused companies across the board to tap into the unending potential of technology. However, the collateral damage is the humans who might be laid off to expand the profit margins.
The report added that ‘Generative AI’s’ ability to create content such as images, videos, audio, text, and 3D models that are indistinguishable from human work is “a major advancement,” and would have an impact on jobs everywhere.
(With inputs from agencies)
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