AI + ML
Forrester model slows structural change rather than a sudden collapse in employment
AI-pocalypse AI and automation could eliminate 6.1 percent of U.S. jobs by 2030, equivalent to 10.4 million fewer jobs currently held by humans.
This is according to Forrester’s veep and principal analyst JP Gounder, who wrote on his blog: “To give you a sense of the magnitude, the United States lost 8.7 million jobs in the Great Recession. The numbers are not directly comparable because jobs lost to AI are structural and permanent, whereas jobs lost in recessions are cyclical and macroeconomic. But no matter how you look at it, the numbers are meaningful and worth noting.”
The U.S. population has also been increasing since the beginning of this century, creating even more confusion when talking about absolute numbers.
The “substantial but modest impact” modeled by Forrester from 2025 to 2030 suggests that it remains unlikely that large parts of the workforce will be replaced “because AI would need to significantly accelerate labor productivity to replace human talent at scale.”
According to the report, a more likely scenario is that AI will “enhance” one of the five roles by the end of the forecast period, indicating that employers may need to invest in talent training to prepare their employees for the new era.
In the technology world, some SaaS providers have already begun replacing some of their employees, including Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow.
Still, risks remain. Forrester says that “over-automation of roles” based on the “hype” surrounding AI risks leading to “costly exits, damaged reputations, and poor employee experiences.”
Some companies, Duolingo and Klarna come to mind, have backed away from efforts to replace meat bags with AI. Forrester said last year that it expects 55% of companies to pursue this type of project and regret the decision to quietly rehire employees.
Forrester says today that 1 million layoffs will occur in the U.S. in 2025, with some of them due to AI. Gounder recalls a discussion with a client seeking advice on laying off 20% of staff in preparation for a transition to AI.
“When you ask if there are mature, vetted AI apps ready to fill these jobs, 9 times out of 10, the answer is no, it hasn’t started yet. So most of the layoffs are done for financial reasons, and at least today, AI is just the scapegoat.”
So what has changed since Forrester’s previously published AI employment forecast for 2023? Agentic AI is coming to market, and organizations are using it to create applications that Forrester claims are more accurate and solve specific problems, although not everyone does.
Generative AI projects are teaching the market how to get better results, both successful and unsuccessful, Gounder said.
“Previous predictions were that only 29% of U.S. jobs would be lost due to automation through GenAI, but that number has now reached 50%, and that includes agent-based AI solutions powered by GenAI.”
For the 20% of positions affected by AI, this “represents an almost 4x increase compared to 2023 projections.”
All of this means that while jobs will decline, we’re “not headed for an imminent AI job apocalypse.” While some workflows and tasks may be taken over by AI, Forrester believes that over the next five years, most of the work will be done by humans. ®
