Insights about AI at Work - APAC commentary

Across the past year, AI has been one of the largest trends that is sweeping through and changing the labour market.

To help shed light on how AI is evolving and how it will impact professionals and businesses, LinkedIn has released two reports about AI at Work, in August 2023 and November 2023.

Here are some of the APAC-specific findings from these reports and what they mean for the APAC labour market.

(1) Huge growth in AI-skilled members, and APAC countries growing faster than global average

The data shows that more LinkedIn members around the globe adding AI skills to their profiles than ever before. Based on AI Skills Index data from 25 countries, by June 2023, the number of AI-skilled members was 9x larger than in January 2016. In other words, the share of members who have added AI skills to their profiles is 9 times higher than it was in January 2016.

In APAC, the numbers are even bigger. 20x for Singapore, 14x for India, and 11x for Australia. With such rapid change, I anticipate that the labour market will increasingly and quickly shift towards skills-based - since many of changes that AI brings are completely new and no existing degree completely covers them, there will be an increased emphasis on hiring for skills, as well as consistent upskilling/reskilling efforts.

(2) Soft skills remain important

While many AI jobs require AI skills like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Data Structures, most of those roles require a mix of AI and non-AI skills (people and digital skills). People skills include communication, leadership, and organizational skills.

Balancing AI skills with people skills is critical to career growth. Tech professionals who have developed one or more of these people skills — communication, teamwork, problem-solving, or leadership — in addition to hard skills get promoted more than 13% faster than employees who only have hard skills.

(3) GAI technologies is likely to affect younger workers more disproportionately.

The potential impacts of GAI technologies are likely to be experienced to different degrees across the workforce. When we evaluate the distributional implications, we find that younger workers are likely to be disproportionately affected. This is not surprising, as career starters tend to be relatively more represented in roles requiring GAI-replicable skills, such as writing and analytics, while they are still in the early stages of developing the people skills that can complement technology, and that come with longer professional experience, such as leadership and negotiation.

As more and more young workers enter the workforce in APAC, particularly in countries with younger workforce demographics such as India, it will be increasingly important to ensure that workers are equipped with the right skills for the changing landscape.

(4) Men are more likely to have conversations about AI; more likely to want to learn AI skills

Conversations around AI on LinkedIn have increased by 70% globally since GAI sparked in popularity. Data shows that majority of these conversations are being driven by men (58%) versus by women (31%).

LinkedIn's Workforce Confidence Index also found that men are more likely than women to want to learn AI skills. The gap is smaller for APAC countries compared to the rest of the world.

This mix of emotions towards AI creates many opportunities for employers to focus on providing equitable access to AI-literacy resources and ensuring that all of their employees are developing the right skills to navigate the changes that are already shaping the future of work.

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These are just some of the many insights available. For more details, check out the full AI at Work reports from August 2023 and November 2023.