As AI Job Postings Start to Increase at Tech Companies, Other Industries Seem to Be Following Their Lead
What a difference a year makes. At the start of 2021 low interest rates and a growing demand for tech products from consumers stuck at home during the pandemic encouraged large tech companies to go on a hiring spree. Inflation ensued, the federal reserve acted, and tech companies reacted.
By the end of 2022, some 161,411 jobs were cut by tech firms according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts across the industry. So far, in 2023, an additional 128,202 employees have been laid off by tech firms.
At the same time artificial intelligence chatbots, ChatGPT and Bard, the two most notable, were introduced to the world, highlighting, what Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University, once said that artificially intelligent machines could be capable of “a very significant fraction of the work that humans can do.”
He believed it would happen by 2045. As in most cases with technology, the future is happening now. But there may be more to this story. The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University has been separating out recent data on Artificial Intelligence job postings, for tech companies and other industries.
They are seeing some interesting data when we compare the percentage of total AI job postings for significant industries and AI postings in the tech industry. The initial data may be a leading indicator showing that as certain non-tech industries have been ramping up on AI and automation, they may be more ready and willing to cut employees.
Data shows that retailing ranks high as a % of tech postings and Walmart just recently announced that they are increasing automation and will be conducting layoffs.
Here in LA health tech companies are rushing to capitalize on the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, seeking to apply these machine-learning technologies to improve health care delivery, patient outcomes, and drug development.
These companies are developing artificial intelligence platforms that aid medical professionals in diagnosing patients, tailoring treatment plans, changing patient behaviors and speeding up the development of new pharmaceutical products.
Because all these artificial intelligence applications are designed to help medical professionals do a better job of diagnosing and treating patients – in other words, “assistive” artificial intelligence – they are sidestepping for now the major controversies that have been the focus of criticism and congressional hearings.
The evolution of LA’s economy continues!