UK minister warns that AI skills gap threaten workers' jobs

A UK minister has issued a stern warning to workers in the country to adapt to the fast-growing AI technology or risk being left behind in the evolving job market.

The warnings come amid the government’s push to make the UK a global leader in AI tech and innovation. At the same time, AI technology, despite its transformative abilities, is also seen as a threat to workers due to forecasts of job losses as businesses automate operations, leaving millions out of employment.

UK to train 7.5 million workers in AI by 2030

According to The Guardian, technology secretary Peter Kyle called on workers and businesses to embrace AI technology, stressing the urgent need to “act now” to stay relevant in the market.

Kyle, this week, met with tech industry bosses to deliberate on an initiative to train 7.5 million workers by 2030. The figure represents a fifth of the overall workforce in the UK. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 to immediate success sparked vast investments into the AI sector, which also resulted in forecasts of massive job losses, especially in the financial services sector and law.

“I think most people are approaching this with trepidation,” said Kyle.

“Once they start [using AI], it turns to exhilaration, because it is a lot more straightforward than people realise, and it is far more rewarding than people expect.”

Kyle.

Kyle emphasized that the integration of AI technology in the economy is inevitable, warning that workers who fail to quickly develop new skills will face challenges.

“There’s no one in employment at the moment that is incapable of gaining the skills that will be needed in the economy in the next five years,” said Kyle.

“That is the optimistic way of saying, act now, and you will thrive into the future. Don’t, and I think that some people will be left behind. And that’s what worries me the most,” he added.

UK government wants to close the skills gap

According to Kyle, there seems to be a generational gap in AI, where individuals above 55 years of age utilize AI half as much as the over-35 demographic. Given this scenario, Kyle indicated the need to close the gap. He suggested simple training on basic AI, which should take just two and a half hours of training only.

“People don’t need to get trained in quantum physics,” said Kyle.

“They need to get trained in the basics of how AI works, how to interact with it, and to explore all of the potential it has for you as an individual in the workplace.”

Kyle.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted that there were still people “skeptical” about AI, who worry about the technology taking their jobs. He was speaking at the London Tech Week where he indicated that the government would attempt to prove that technology can “create wealth in your community…. create good job and vastly improve our public sector.”

According to the Guardian, people in English speaking countries like the UK, US, Australia and Canada are more concerned about the prevalence of AI as compared to those in the largest EU economies, according to polling data shared with The Guardian.

This comes as various projections on the impact of AI on jobs have been rendered. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that AI tech could cause massive job losses in skilled professions like medicine, law, and finance.

On the other hand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has calculated 60% of jobs in advanced economies like the US and UK are exposed to AI, and half of these jobs may be negatively affected.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs previously predicted that as many as 300 million jobs would be lost or diminished by the technology.

However, in the UK, the Tony Blair Institute, which has called for AI adoption both in private and public sectors, has indicated the technology’s potential to mitigate job losses as it creates new roles.

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