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A.I. is coming for our jobs: are you prepared?
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Over the holidays I got into a number of conversations with people about the role of AI (artificial intelligence or generative AI), particularly as it relates to work and the replacement of workers. And while I think we can all have a good conversation about what 'might be', I left these conversations thinking that whatever becomes of AI, it's going to be completely different than what we might expect.
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What do we know? We know that AI will replace some jobs; make some more efficient and will super-charge others. For instance, the majority of jobs for transactional customer service and other types of order takers will be eliminated by AI. Meanwhile, jobs in graphic design, communications or presenting analysis will be made far more productive by AI. Jobs in AI architecture, businesses management and in leadership will be super-charged by AI, creating whole new occupations and providing exponential salary and productivity improvements for senior leaders.
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We don't know how all of this will occur, but I can assure you the least skilled, least interpersonal jobs, will experience the greatest exponential threat. This is why it is so important for us to prepare people for this transition.
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One of the conversations I had in the past week was about bookkeepers. Perhaps, less so than payroll administrators or accounting clerks, who possess less specialized knowledge, bookkeeping is going to take a hit as this specialized skill gets baked into the back-end processes through the increased use of AI.
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When I noted this, the person said, "yes, but most accountants I know are not only well-paid, but in high demand."
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To which I replied, "yes, accountants are but not necessarily bookkeepers. They are very different occupations."
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So, the question remains, how is artificial intelligence a threat to our jobs and what can we do about it?
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If all we do in our work is take job orders, share resumes and prepare wage subsidy agreements, then we are the bookkeepers of the career development sector. We are providing a pretty straightforward function that will be increasingly performed by AI. It's already being done through websites, apps and similar tools.
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What makes us the 'accountants' of the career development world? Accountants understand accounting, but that is only a small part of their job. They need to consider their accounting knowledge through the lens of similar clients with comparable situations; experience with government filings; and the day-to-day reality of regulatory frameworks. They then need to take this information and make it accessible for people who aren’t accountants.
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And while this experience, coupled with their knowledge is critical, the human skills of empathy, persuasion, creativity, collaboration, problem solving, interpersonal skills, confidence and dozens other qualities will give their customers and colleagues the confidence they not only know what they are talking about, but they are providing informed answers.
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Accountants will certainly be using AI to provide this assistance, but customers will turn to knowledgeable humans when things really count, and this will be as much for accountants as doctors, lawyers, marketing specialists and human resources professionals.
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So, how do we become the 'accountants' of the career development sector. Frankly, it will be through the day-to-day gathering of labour market information that will help us better understand employers or to better inform them about the changing labour market. When we come across better tools, we should be sharing them with employers. When we discover data about how the job market is changing, this should support our conversations with employers. As we identify local trends about sectors or the labour force, we should be using this information to help employers do a better job of recruiting.
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And even as I share these ideas, this is only the information and experience components of job development. To excel as a 'professional' we should be focused on utilizing interpersonal skills such as persuasion; in the form of developing the best strategies for convincing employers about the value of hiring our clients or students.
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We might want to use a skill such as creativity. When employers tell us about their challenges, to be able to suggest clients or staffing options that might address those challenges.
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A skill such as collaboration might be helpful in getting different stakeholders to work together on a project such as a job fair, labour market report or employer panel discussion.
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In professional roles, there is a lot of humanity that is not suited to AI that we take for granted in our day-to-day lives.
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It's for this reason that 100 per cent of management jobs have a low-chance of automation over the next 10 years and 97 per cent of jobs requiring a university degree will experience a low chance of automation over the same time period, according to a study by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in Great Britain.
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For comparison, among jobs requiring instruction or apprenticeship of more than 2 years, only 53 per cent of jobs have a low chance of automation. Only 45 per cent of jobs requiring less than 2 years of education have low-chance of automation. For jobs requiring high school, just 18 per cent of jobs have a low chance of automation. Among jobs requiring less than high school, just one per cent of jobs have a low chance of automation.
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Jobs requiring higher levels of education, employ more interpersonal skills and innately human qualities and therefore will be less subject to automation and other forms of generative AI.
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So, what are those innately human skills that are most critical to the work we do in career development? According to the O*NET database, the following is a list of skills and competencies which are critical to jobs in NOC Code Grouping 4: Occupations in Education, Law, Social, Community and Government Services, as well as what percentage of those jobs will require these competencies:
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- Active Listening (100%)
- Speaking (92%)
- Critical Thinking (89%)
- Reading Comprehension (89%)
- Social Perceptiveness (81%)
- Writing (77%)
- Service Orientation (65%)
- Judgement and Decision Making (61%)
- Monitoring (59%)
- Complex Problem Solving (59%)
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It's clear that AI will be instrumental in supporting many of these competencies, but it is the combination of them (or how they interact with each other) that will have employers, job seekers and funders turning to human beings to provide these services.
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Take for instance, 'social perceptiveness'. If you took a group of professionals, some are going to be better at this than others, but how much does this skill improve with repeated experience.
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When you meet an employer for the first time, how many conscious and unconscious cues are informing what you say, how you say it and how you reply. This is delicate balance, based on hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions over the course of your career.
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This is an area where AI does not excel and will not be able to replicate what a person can do over time.
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Don't get me wrong. AI can develop a good sales pitch and can even tailor it to sound like you or incorporate suggestions of making it better. But it's not going to choose to change what it says from a subtle eyebrow raise, or a disinterested response from an employer who's half-turned away.
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AI would also have a tough time discerning when the words an employer is using suggests they are interested while their tone, gestures and distraction suggest they aren't the lease bit interested.
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Employers have been able to turn to apps and online tools for nearly 20 years to find the workers they need. They can also go online to apply for wage subsidy and other financial supports. The very fact we have human beings lean job development supports is not to market these supports but to sell them.
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Employers need to be convinced. Clients need to be advocated for. And when things go sideways, someone needs to go in and smooth things over. This is a job for a human being, not AI.
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In March, I'll be doing my annual Labour Market 101 Workshops, which is great for people who are new to the sector or people who just want to sharpen their skills. These are intended to provide guidance on how career professionals should use labour market information to excel in their jobs and we have a separate module for each career development role including one for 'job developers' taking place on Thursday March 5th.
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We are now in the middle of five weeks of articles in Labour Market Online (BC Version / Ontario Version), where we are talking about the specific skills professionals need and this Wednesday January 7th, we'll be looking specifically at what job developers need to do.
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For today, I wanted to focus not on how to make LMI meaningful in your work but how to make it meaningful for local employers.
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Labour market information is what makes you a trusted professional local employers can turn to in the community for their recruitment and retention needs. As you gather information about employer needs, local trends and the skilled workforce, I would encourage you to share this with employers.
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You might want to, for instance:
- Prepare a 'Labour Market Insights' newsletter you share on a monthly basis with all of the employers you are working with
- Organize a labour market committee for your local chamber of commerce or board of trade
- Distribute monthly press releases on the labour market to media or community stakeholders
- Develop 'Labour Market Tips', you distribute through social media
- Prepare a labour market FAQ sheet you distribute to each new employer you meet
- Provide a brochure on the little understood benefits of inclusive hiring in building a lasting workforce
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It might seem contrary to suggest that the better tracking and integration of labour market information would be a pathway to AI resilience in our job market. Using AI to track LMI and share it is actually one of the best things you can do. It's how we interpret, explain and build on this knowledge that will make us the professionals employers want to work with.
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We’ll be discussing the increasing impact of AI in career development at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday January 5th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday Jan. 5th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
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Labour Market 101 Training Modules
for British Columbia and Ontario
35% Discount Until January 15th, 2026
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It's time for our annual Labour Market 101 Training Modules. This is an excellent introduction to important LMI divided up into five different occupations:
Resource Room Advisors (Mon. Mar. 2nd);
Employment Case Managers (Tues. Mar. 3rd);
Facilitators (Wed. Mar. 4th);
Job Developers (Thurs. Mar. 5th); and
Managers / Supervisors (Fri. Mar. 6th)
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Up until January 15th, everyone who registers is going to benefit from a 35% discount on their registration.
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We have two series planned, one for British Columbia career professionals and another for Ontario. To learn more, click on one of these links:
BC LMI 101 Training Modules
Ontario LMI 101 Training Modules
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or to learn more, email Christian Saint Cyr, at: csaintcyr@labourmarketonline.com.
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