LinkedIn’s data shows that AI is not to blame for the hiring slowdown…

LinkedIn is Blake Lawit director of global affairs and legal affairs for Microsoft’s website, confirmed in an interview Semaphore World Economy Meeting this week that industry data shows a decrease in hiring of about 20% from 2022.

However, he pushed back on the idea that AI was to blame.

“On LinkedIn … we have an economic graph that has more than a billion members. We have companies, jobs, skills. It’s really amazing what’s happening in the job market. And we’ve looked – because everyone wants to know the answer to this question: Is AI affecting work right now? We’ve looked and, honestly, we haven’t seen it,” he said during his interview.

In fact, the official said that unemployment is closely linked to rising interest rates.

“We haven’t seen the challenges that you would expect to see in the areas where everyone is talking about AI … like industry, whether it’s customer service, or management, or marketing – all of these places where we would have seen results (from) AI and where it would have been,” Lawit continued.

“Yes, the rent is down, but not down,” he added.

Lawit also noted that LinkedIn’s data did not show that the rate of college-age youth employers landing their first jobs was “significantly lower,” perhaps, compared to people who were in the middle or later in their careers.

However, he did not rule out that things could change.

“It doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future, but it won’t.”

At this point, however, Lawit had a caveat of sorts. Lawit also said that over the past few years, the skills required for a typical job have changed by 25%. With the rise of AI, LinkedIn expects this number to be 70% by 2030.

“So, even if you don’t change your job, your job is changing for you,” he said.