IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the US IT giant would pause hiring for roles it thinks could be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years.
In an interview with Bloomberg, hiring in areas such as human resources will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said.
These non-customer-facing roles comprise approximately 26,000 workers.
As AI tools have caught the public creativity with their capacity to automate customer support, write text and generate code, many viewers are concerned regarding their potential to disrupt the job market. Krishna’s plan marks one of the largest strategies to reduce the workforce in response to rapidly advancing technology.
Day-to-day tasks such as administering various certificates or moving workers between departments are the potential to be fully automated, Krishna expressed. He added that some HR functions, such as evaluating workforce performance, are improbable to be returned in the next decade.
IBM has approximately 260,000 employees and continues hiring people in software development and customer-facing roles. Krishna spoke finding talent today is easier than it was a year ago. The company announced the layoff of about 5,000 employees earlier this year. Nevertheless, Krishna expressed IBM increased its overall workforce, bringing on nearly 7,000 people in the first quarter, however, AI might cause a loss of this workforce.
IBM annual savings by 2024
As a director, Krishna guided the company toward software and services such as hybrid cloud. He traded some of the corporation’s lower-growth portfolio companies, like the infrastructure management unit Kydryl and part of Watson Health.
New strides in productivity and efficiency are expected to generate $2 billion in annual savings by the end of 2024.
At the end of 2022, Krishna spoke the US could avoid a recession. Now, he sees the potential for a superficial and temporary recession by the end of this year.
