A new study reveals how widely Americans use and welcome technologies featuring artificial intelligence.

If businesses invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as ‘top-notch’ companies, they could boost revenues by 38% by 2022 and raise employment levels by 10%, according to a report from Accenture.

The data, published during the World Economic Forum, showed that collectively, this investment means profits could be lifted by $4.8 trillion globally over the same period.

“For the average S&P500 company, this equates to USD 7.5 billion of revenues and a USD 880 million lift to profitability,” the report noted.

72% of the 1,200 senior executives surveyed said intelligent technology will be critical to their organisation’s market differentiation and 61% noted that the share of roles requiring collaboration with AI will rise in the next three years.

“To achieve higher rates of growth in the age of AI, companies need to invest more in equipping their people to work with machines in new ways,” Mark Knickrehm, Group Chief Executive, Accenture Strategy, said.

More than two thirds, or 69%, of the 14,000 workers surveyed said it is important to develop skills to work with intelligent machines.

While 54% of business leaders say that human-machine collaboration is important to their strategic priorities, 3% noted that their organisation plans to significantly increase its investment in reskilling their workers in the next three years.

Meanwhile, 63% of senior executives think that their company will create net job gains in the next three years through AI and 62% of workers believe AI will have a positive impact on their work.

More than half of businesses around the world expect to transfer one-third of their permanent positions to contingent roles in the near future, according to the Q4 Talent Trends report by Randstad Sourceright.

The survey, which polled more than 700 global human capital leaders, found that 61% of employers plan to replace up to 30% of their permanent positions with freelancers, gig workers and independent contractors to become more agile and flexible in the changing economy.

Furthermore, approximately 40% of employers surveyed expect they will be able to reduce the impact of talent scarcity by having an integrated hiring strategy.

“Companies are increasingly embracing gig workers, and even robots, in their overall workforce to address the increasingly tight labor market in the US and around the world,” Rebecca Henderson, CEO of Randstad Sourceright, said. “While in the last decade contingent workers have been viewed very differently as compared to full time positions, today’s companies are welcoming the opportunity to employ a more agile workforce, particularly as a greater number of gig workers embrace flexible work practices as well.”

Meanwhile, Randstad Sourceright’s data also showed that nearly 70% of employers surveyed believe the skills gap is widening and will create significant challenges in the near future, which is why a vast majority of companies agree that all available resources should be considered to combat recruitment challenges.

According to the report, companies are investing more in training programs to meet the growing demand for talent. Half of employers (50%) said they have increased budgets for reskilling programs in 2017, and 52% say they are investing in training and development technologies at moderate or significant levels.

The report pointed to research from the World Economic Forum that showed workers in India are not receiving the technical and vocational training needed to prepare them for a changing economy. In the EU, the report pointed to research from the European Commission which showed that by 2020, there will be more than 750,000 job vacancies in the ICT sector.

“HR departments have quickly realised they can no longer stick to business as usual if they hope to hire top talent in the 21st century,” James Stovall, Randstad Sourceright’s Senior Vice President of solution design, said. “By implementing an integrated talent approach, where permanent, contingent, independent and machine labor are engaged strategically, companies can improve their workforce agility by having access to the right talent at the right time.”

WAYNE, Mich. (Reuters) – Robots have replaced many U.S. manufacturing workers, but new mechanical exoskeletons being tested by Ford Motor Co may help factory workers to function like bionic people, reducing the physical damage of millions of repetitive tasks over many years.

More finance jobs in New Zealand are expected to be created than replaced by automation, according to research by Robert Half.

Nearly four in 10, or 39%, of New Zealand CFOs are planning to expand their permanent financial headcount to help implement their company’s automation efforts over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, 28% are planning to create new roles for temporary or contract professionals over the next year.

Further research showed that the majority, or 84%, of CFOs agree workplace automation does not imply a reduction in finance employees in their team, but rather, it requires a shift in the necessary skills. More specifically, the top skills finance professionals need to focus on as a result of automation are problem-solving skills (50%), strategic vision (42%), IT skills (35%) and commercial acumen (34%).

“New Zealand businesses are responding quickly and flexibly to automation and digitisation, and despite public sentiment about robots replacing jobs, automation is about adapting to change rather than eliminating jobs,” Megan Alexander, General Manager of Robert Half New Zealand said. “In turn, this provides new opportunities for employees to manage this change as they shift their focus to added-value activities for their organisation.”

Robert Half’s research also showed that some of the finance functions that are either already automated or likely to be automated within three years include data collection (72%), invoicing (67%), data entry (66%), project management reporting (64%), report analysis (62%), and financial report generation (61%).

“Finance professionals will need to develop the skills that leverage the full capabilities of automation as more advanced technology requires additional, well-developed competencies, such as advanced data analysis, interpretation skills, and decision-making skills, leaving finance and accounting employees with a more expansive and rich skillset that will benefit their career and increase their value in the future employment market,” Alexander said.

Suddenly there are dozens of books, conferences and speeches being made about the future of work.
At Bersin by Deloitte, we have spent several years studying the latest trend of automation changing work and have come to some clear conclusions. The big issue we face is not the loss of jobs or frightening robots taking over our lives; it’s the profound effect this new economy is having on peoples’ careers.
We are calling this “sustaining organizational performance.”

Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies could take off in countries with a shortage of young workers, according to Rob Subbaraman, chief economist at Nomura for the Asia Ex-Japan region. CNBC reports that these countries include Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan. “If you don’t embrace these new artificial intelligence, robotics and ways to make up for shortages of youth labour, you’re going to have a slowdown of potential growth,” Subbaraman said. He added that machines can help in countries with a slowdown in labour growth, since they can process information faster and carry out tasks more quickly than humans. “Because Japan’s got a falling and aging population, it really needs machines, A.I. and all this to start replacing labor,” Subbaraman said. Japan’s labour shortage problem hit a 43-year high this year and the country has been trying to handle the crisis with different approaches including an increase in permanent hiring and a rise in hiring more freshers.

Nearly a quarter, or 23%, of Australian employers say they now employ temporary or contract staff on a regular ongoing basis, with automation and AI contributing to the rise, according to survey data from international recruiter Hays.

The research, based on a survey of more than 2,950 organisations representing 3,021,984 employees, also showed that 44% of Australian firms employ temporary and contract staff for special projects or workloads. In the next 12 months 23% expect to increase their use of temporary and contract staff. This exceeds the 9% who anticipate decreasing in this area.

This increase will be greatest in IT departments, where 37% of employers will increase their use of temporaries and contractors. The use of temporary and contract staff will also rise in 32% of Project Management and Purchasing/Procurement departments as well as 30% of Marketing departments, and 28% of Engineering departments.

“If we look at the skills in demand, it is professionals who can undertake non-routine work who are seeing the highest job growth,” Nick Deligiannis, Managing Director of Hays, said. “This is likely to continue, with automation and artificial intelligence already beginning to take over manual and repetitive tasks – just think of automated self-service checkouts in retail stores or assembly lines in manufacturing plants.”

“Robots and AI are expected to also be used as another tool to help us do our job better, but with automation taking over routine tasks it is knowledge workers who are more likely to be needed in future,” Deligiannis said.

“Highly-skilled temporary and contract staff are certainly becoming the ‘new normal’ in workplaces, creating a blended workforce of temporary and permanent employees who work side-by-side,” Deligiannis said. “By their very nature temporary and contract employees possess a high level of relevant knowledge. They are experts in their field and come into a workplace to add value immediately. It’s no wonder then that we’re seeing an increase in the use of temporary and contract staff.”

Artificial intelligence, automation and big data are raising fears of widespread layoffs in a $150 billion industry.

More than 50% of laid-off IT employees in India will be reskilled and hired back into the labour force, according to data from Indian HR outsourcing services firm CielHR.

The survey polled mid to senior-level professionals from more than 50 companies in the IT industry.

“The normal IT industry attrition is 15-20%, which is not getting replaced and with automation taking over, more than 200,000 jobs are likely to be lost in next two years,” CIEL HRServices CEO Aditya Narayan Mishra told the Economictimes. “This may sound depressing, but all is not lost. There are enough opportunities to be leveraged upon.”

Mishra stated that new opportunities are rising in areas such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence, while most of the layoffs are taking place in segments like IT infrastructure support, testing and software development.

The survey stated that approximately 50% of the laid off workforce in the IT industry, including freshers with under eight years of experience, will be re-skilled and transferred to other opportunities. The survey adds that the remaining 50% could find opportunities in other sectors.

Meanwhile, the survey data also showed that 33% of the respondents expected factors like automation and changing government policies resulting in job losses.

According to data from Naukri.com, the IT and Software Industry saw a decline in hiring of 17% in May when compared to the previous year.