The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on work processes is growing rapidly, while there is a shortage of skilled labour in Switzerland and the EU. How will this combination affect the labour market and inflation in the long term?

 

Copyright: swissinfo.ch – “How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Impact The Work Environment”


 

SwissCognitive_Logo_RGBNo, this text was not written by an AI. But it could soon be. Artificial intelligence is making rapid progress.

Not only could journalistic texts be written by computers in the future, but many other tasks will soon no longer require humans: for example, photo editing, stocktaking and bookkeeping.
In the SWI swissinfo.ch podcast Geldcast, we spoke to economist Jan-Egbert Sturm from the Economic Research Centre at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich and asked, among other things: will there soon be fewer jobs?

Baby boomers retiring

In the short term, the answer is no – at least for Switzerland. Because something else is happening on the domestic labour market at the same time. Something that has never happened before in the recent past. According to calculations by Patrick Eugster, a self-employed economist and financial market expert, a net 30,000 workers will soon be leaving the Swiss labour market – every year.

The reason: the baby boomers born between 1959 and 1964 are retiring. And these people will only be partially replaced by young and foreign workers.

The bottom line is that there is a shortfall on the labour market. There is a shortage of skilled labour – and not just in Switzerland. There is currently a similar trend in the eurozone.


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This labour shortage is reflected in unemployment figures. These are still at a very low level, despite the very sharp interest rate hikes by central banks in recent years.

In Switzerland, the unemployment rate is currently 4.2%, according to the international definition (2% according to the Swiss definition), 3.7% in the US and 6.5% in the eurozone. This is very low by historical standards.

The labour shortage is good news for employees: they are gaining bargaining power vis-à-vis employers.[…]

Read more: www.swissinfo.ch