Artificial intelligence is not to blame for a slump in hiring, a LinkedIn executive said during London Tech Week.
Blake Lawit, the technology company’s chief global affairs and legal officer, said that while hiring rates were at their lowest in the UK, the post-Covid economy rather than AI adoption was to blame.
Hiring in the UK had slowed down 24 per cent since the pandemic and had been dropping by about 10 per cent year over year, according to LinkedIn’s user data.
“Hiring is slow, it's slower than it has been. But as far as we can tell, that hiring slowness seems much more driven by macroeconomic conditions like a rise of interest rates that we saw in 2022,” he said, speaking at an event on AI and the future of work at foreign affairs think tank Chatham House in London.
Job transitions on LinkedIn were also at a 10-year low, with people staying longer with their employers.
He said the UK was seeing “small 'c' conservatism” from businesses where hiring was concerned. “That leads to less movement from the job market.”
But he insisted this was not caused by AI – as LinkedIn’s data showed that jobs that were likely to be affected by AI were not substantially more affected than those that were less at risk.
“You might say, well, how do you know this isn't due to AI? We've really looked at the industries and the parts of the career that you'd expect to be most impacted [by AI], and while we do see that hiring rates are down, it's not down to a greater degree than other places,” he said.
“In professions like marketing, customer service, admin. Yes, the marketing, the hiring rates down, but not different than the rest of the economy,” he said.
Technology company bosses have repeatedly spoken of huge job loses as their AI models are introduced to businesses and the public – but have recently moderated their tone following a backlash. Last month, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang accused employers who had been making cuts years before the AI roll-out of trying to “sound smart” by blaming the technology.
But there has been growing criticism of the UK government’s handling of the job market, after it raised National Insurance contributions for employers, and the minimum wage above inflation.
Unemployment is expected to increase by more than 400,000 people by the end of 2028, compared with 2024, the British Chambers of Commerce warned last week.
Baroness Minouche Shafik, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's chief economic adviser, said there was “no evidence yet of massive displacement as a result of AI”, according to government assessments.
“I personally don't think you can identify the jobs that are at risk. If you type into any AI agent which jobs are at risk of AI you'll get a different list, because nobody really knows, and it's very fluid,” she said, speaking at the same event.
She called for a better “safety net” that would tide people over in case of job loss, and would include opportunities to retrain.
She opposed proposals for a universal basic income, which have been raised by technology employers as a way of supporting populations when AI and automation replace most jobs.
“From an economic point of view you can't scale. You can't generate enough surplus to pay people enough to be idle,” she said.
The UK government announced a new AI training scheme this week to help young people in Northern England who are at risk of becoming unemployed, as well as a £20 million package to encourage early career jobs.
It also launched an AI assistant for unemployed people looking for work.
Ferrari for the mind
Kensington Olympia is the headquarters for most of Tech Week’s activities and speakers, who have included Mr Starmer, former chancellor George Osborne, now of Open AI, as well as dozens of other business leaders.
The Prince of Wales will visit on Wednesday, to highlight how data and technology can be used to identify risks that can lead to homelessness.
Speaking at Olympia's AI Arena, Perplexity co-founder Aravind Srinivas adapted a phrase by Steve Jobs about computers being the “bicycle for the mind”, to say that AI was the “Ferrari for the mind”, empowering people beyond previous capabilities.
“IBM owned the mainframe but missed the PC. Microsoft owned the PC, completely missed mobile. Nokia owned mobile, but missed the smartphone,” said Mr Srinivas. Don’t miss what AI can do for you was his message.
For the thousands of delegates gathered, the opportunity AI creates is expansion: turning start-ups into thriving businesses.
Among the exhibitors was Mick McNeil, chief executive and founder of UK-based Deliverance AI, which exited stealth mode this week, intent on building operating systems for sovereign enterprise AI.
Mr McNeil told The National of his plans to expand to Abu Dhabi later this year.
He said the UAE was moving faster than anyone in Europe in embracing AI and creating opportunities for businesses on a global scale.
Lucy Liu, co-founder and president at FinTech payments company Airwallex, told The National the founders and companies “that will be successful tomorrow are the ones that are ready to scale globally from day one.”
“That’s the journey we’ve been through at Airwallex, building independently for 10 years – and almost failing several times – was incredibly tough, but ultimately it’s the decision that’s defined who we are.”
She said the UK and Europe are a hotbed for tech talent while in the Middle East and the UAE in particular, there is a lot of “untapped potential”.
“We recognise the growth trajectory for the EMEA region and are acting accordingly, with over $1 billion investment planned across the region over the next five years.
The company has committed to developing AI-native practitioners across the business. She said: “This is an invaluable mindset that will fast-track our future expansion plans and create stronger opportunities for us to support our partners from the UK to the UAE, and beyond.”
