Indeed CEO Hisayuki Dekiba “Deco” says concerns about AI miss larger issues in the labor market.
“In fact, what is happening in all developed countries, including European countries and the United States, is a major demographic shift and an aging labor market,” Idekova, who is also CEO of Indeed and Glassdoor parent company Recruit Holdings, said Wednesday at the Semaphore World Economic Summit.
The fight to backfill retired workers is “a much bigger impact than the impact of AI today,” Idekova said.
Idekova said an Indeed study found that the U.S. will lose 20 million workers over the next 15 years. “That’s like a 5% reduction in employees,” he says. Indeed estimates that 80% of this decline is due to aging and only 20% is due to AI-related job separation.
Idekova said Western countries, including the United States, have not grappled with the reality that the labor market is shrinking, even though there are already shortages of high-skilled jobs.
He compared the situation to his native Japan. Japan has suffered from declining birthrates for decades, but has maintained a relatively stable workforce by adding more women to the workforce. Historically, women’s labor force rates have been much lower in Japan.
Unlike Japan, the United States and many Western countries do not have a similar untapped workforce to rely on.
“Similar things are happening not only in the United States, but also in Germany, the United Kingdom and other developed countries, and it will happen even faster,” Idekova said. “That’s why what’s literally happening is we have so many openings for basically essential jobs like construction jobs, plumbers, medical jobs, electricians, and we just don’t have a good pipeline.”
Idekova said such shortages would soon become a major headache for consumers.
“I don’t want to wait two months after a leak is discovered,” he says. “But that’s what’s happening now in the United States.”
Correction April 16, 2026 — An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated the period of decline in the U.S. workforce that Idekova described. It was 15 years.