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Here comes yet another trend, with accompanying buzzword, as anxiety over the ongoing threat of AI is resulting in employees in the US 'job hugging' as they try to cling to their positions, says new research.
Recent job market data shows historically low rates of worker turnover, with the pace of job turnover hitting a nine year low in January at 5.8%.
Data from ADP Research backs that up, showing that workers are leaving their jobs either through quitting or layoffs at an unusually low rate. Measured by the rate of employee turnover, this so-called job stickiness is at a multi year high as many workers hunker down amid significant economic uncertainty.
"What this means for the labor market is that workers and employers, for now, are sticking together," ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said in the report.
Job hugging in AI exposed sectors
Workers trying to keep their jobs is certainly nothing new or unusual, but this dynamic is currently most visible among white collar workers in finance, information technology and professional business services - industries that are among the most exposed to AI driven changes in hiring, with a number of large companies attributing recent job cuts to AI.
"These sectors have made headlines recently as advances in artificial intelligence both augment employment (through demand for developers, for example) and curtail it (by automating tasks)," Richardson wrote.
Fears that increasingly advanced AI tools could displace white collar employees are driving renewed interest in blue collar careers among some young job seekers.
According to Richardson, the relatively sluggish state of the current labor market reflects a hangover from the pandemic, when robust hiring followed dramatic employment losses as companies resized. The current trend stands in stark contrast to the period known informally as the Great Resignation, when employees quit at record rates and job listings soared.
"That experience has yielded to a more cautious approach to both hiring and firings, with employers doing less of both. For workers, the hyper competitive labor market of the Great Resignation, which generated larger salaries and improved benefits, has been replaced by a stable, but softer employment environment," Richard said.
Anecdotal evidence suggests some workers are hunkering down in their jobs because AI is gobbling up the kinds of roles they would have once pursued and taking them off the job market.
AI anxiety and entry level hiring
Radouane Khiri, a full stack web developer at wireless carrier US Mobile, talking to CBS news, described how AI tools are reshaping daily work.
"You need to know what you're doing in order for the AI to do a good job, because you need to give it specific prompts," he said. "If you're not a professional, it won't do what you want it to. But I use it like a junior coder."
Khiri noted that his company is hiring fewer entry level developers than in the past.
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"Now AI can do those small tasks that used to take a week in a much shorter period of time," he said. "I think since AI took over, startups are hiring very few junior developers, especially right out of college."
Over time, the conventional wisdom among most experts is that AI will foster innovation and spur job creation, as past major technological shifts have tended to do.
"The U.S. economy creates more than 30 [million[ gross new jobs per year, and technological change is the main driver of long run employment growth," Joseph Briggs, global economist at Goldman Sachs, said in a recent report. "We expect that these dynamics will repeat and AI will create new jobs while it destroys others. We therefore do not anticipate a job apocalypse."
It may not be the perfect marriage, but workers and employers, for now, are sticking together. At 5.8%, employee turnover is at a nine year low. Job 'stickiness' at a multi year low and advances in artificial intelligence are both augmenting employment and curtailing it. Employers are doing less hiring and less firing.
AI will inevitably create new jobs while it destroys others and for the moment, a lot of workers are keeping their heads down clinging on tight to their 9 to 5.
