White-collar jobs in jeopardy? Here’s what AI will do to half of them according to Ford CEO
Ford’s chief executive officer, Jim Farley, is one of a number of business leaders offering a grim prediction for the future of white-collar workers.
The CEO of auto giant Ford says the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) does not bode well for the white-collar workforce. Indeed, he has offered an apocalyptic prediction that echoes forecasts made by other major business chiefs.
Speaking recently at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Jim Farley said bluntly: “Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.”
At the same time, Farley added, America faces a shortage of blue-collar workers skilled in trades that are key to what he calls the “essential economy”.
Worker profiles don’t fit economy needs, Ford CEO says
Defining the “essential economy” as “everything that gets built or moved or fixed”, the Ford chief said the U.S. needs around half a million more construction workers, 400,000 more automobile mechanics, and 600,000 more manufacturing specialists in factories. This shortfall will be “painfully expensive to fix”, he warned.
And Farley explained that AI is itself among the industries that depend on the U.S.’s ability to close this apparent deficit of workers trained in blue-collar trades.
“AI battery plants all seem really exciting,” he said,” but they all need HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] installers, they need electricians, they need welders, and in many of these boom towns around the country, half of the new jobs are these ‘essential economy’ workers.”
As is pointed out by The Street reporter Moz Farooque, AI has had a role in significant white-collar-job layoffs at U.S. auto manufacturers in recent months.
Most significantly, Farooque notes, Ford rival General Motors dispensed with more than 1,000 people in salaried software and service roles last August.
Many white-collar workers “unaware” of what’s coming
In an interview with Axios last month, the CEO of the AI firm Anthropic, Dario Amodei, offered a forecast for the future of white-collar professionals that is every bit as dire as that ventured by Farley.
Amodei told the media outlet that, as AI replaces many such workers, unemployment in the U.S. could rise to as high as 20% over the next five years. That’s five times the country’s current level of joblessness, which is estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be at just over 4%.
“Most of them [white-collar workers] are unaware that this is about to happen,” Amodei told Axios. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it.”
Last month also saw Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reveal that the tech giant is anticipating AI-related staff cuts. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy told Amazon employees in a company memo.
“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
Such predictions come on the back of striking comments made by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates early this year.
“This is a bit scary”
In a February appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show, Gates told host Jimmy Fallon that AI technology will render humans unnecessary “for most things” within a decade.
“Legitimately, people are like, ‘Wow, this is a bit scary,’” the 69-year-old acknowledged. “It’s completely new territory.”
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