Or might it become a 3-D printer-plus, and actually make your next car from scratch? Just pour in a bunch of steel and tires into a mythical blender and…puff…there’s a Lexus.

This massive-change speculation brings to mind two previous technology booms that turned out to be busts. The first is when “PCs”…personal computers…first hit the business scene when a report said we would all be working fewer hours. It was yes, we can be more productive but no, that doesn’t mean someone won’t give us more work.

They seemed to have forgotten the Wall Street never sleeps thing, that investors expect more and more profits, versus now that we have new technology we can go home early and take a nap.

The second was the sudden invention of robotics when 60 Minutes showed several reports of the incredible things robots could do now and soon after into our futures. Lists immediately appeared of which jobs would go away the fastest.

And now regarding AI, it’s impossible to separate scientific potential from true science fiction, in part because I’m quite sure no one really knows.

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Further Reading: How Much Are Worker Shortages Impacting Customer Service Today?

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Except the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, They Know Workforce Numbers

In a special report just two days ago, the BLS released a detailed study including their heavily-researched position on AI’s impact on the future US workforce.[i] Their study notes that the initial attention-getting foray into AI was the deployment of Open AI’s ChatGPT in November, 2022, and that speculation has grown since. Their study focuses on the computer, legal, business and financial, architectural, and the engineering occupational groups.

Here is their major conclusion:

Over the 2023–33 projections period, AI is expected to primarily affect occupations whose core tasks can be most easily replicated by GenAI in its current form. These occupations include medical transcriptionists and customer service representatives, whose employment is projected to decline by 4.7 and 5.0 percent, respectively, through 2033.

Then they go on to report these specific projections in this lengthy paragraph:

Other occupations also may see AI impacts, although not to the same extent. For instance, computer occupations may see productivity impacts from AI, but the need to implement and maintain AI infrastructure could in actuality boost demand for some occupations in this group. Among legal occupations, paralegals and legal assistants are likely to experience lower employment demand because of LLM adoption, while lawyers are expected to be less affected. Within business and financial operations occupations, insurance adjusters and appraisers are expected to see reduced employment demand, with AI being able to quickly produce monetary estimates of property damage. Meanwhile, other occupations in this group, such as personal financial advisors, will likely continue to see strong employment growth because demand for human counsel in complex financial matters will persist, particularly for older clients. Architecture and engineering occupations may see some productivity gains from GenAI, but these gains will likely be in line with those afforded by software and other technological advancements in prior decades. As a result, occupations in this group are not expected to see substantial GenAI-driven reductions in employment demand over the projections period.

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Further reading: Today’s Riddle – What is America’s Greatest Business Challenge?

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So How Will This Impact Future Job Growth?

Like the initial impact of robotics, I read this to say that outside of medical transcriptionists and customer service representatives, most jobs will see small increases or decreases overall. And that no one who has their heart set on those two noted jobs should re-direct their career choice given that reductions of 5.0 percent max still leaves a lot of those same jobs to be filled.

It’s essentially what is becoming the repeating how-automation-impacts-jobs story, that technology advances we can’t yet imagine continue to put an end to some jobs while creating new ones. And that overall, the required educational levels keep going up.

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Further reading: Fewer Students, Fewer Workers, and a Hiring Crisis Ahead – Are You Ready?

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What Does Our Future Hold for Workforce Availability?

This aligns spot-on with last week’s report here about colleges closing their doors, mostly because our plunging birthrate has led us to a shortage of 18-year-olds. And that shortage will continue not just as they get older, but that decreasing birthrate provides no indication that more babies are coming our way.

All of which takes us to this major conclusion, and one that is unpopular with some:

The first-world country that attracts the best and brightest immigrants will win.

What’s the best thing that you and your company can do? RETAIN YOUR BEST WORKERS NOW.

Employee Retention for Long-term Success

Now is the time to plan how you will retain your best workers now to mitigate the numbers you will need to hire in the future. If you know you need to address turnover or improve engagement but aren’t sure where to start, email me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com and I promise to help you jump start your employee retention strategy now, so you can begin seeing results this year.

[i] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2025/article/incorporating-ai-impacts-in-bls-employment-projections.htm

The post Will AI Replace Enough Jobs to Fix Worker Shortage? appeared first on C-Suite Analytics.

• Airlines are closing off routes due to pilot shortages^[ii] while national safety experts are monitoring whether airlines are promoting junior pilots to bigger planes too quickly.^[iii]
• CVS, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart have all reduced their pharmacy hours “in the midst of a pharmacist shortage”.^[iv]
• A nationwide shortage of lifeguards will force thousands of city pools to close or restrict their hours.^[v]
• A new hospital in Phoenix stood empty for six months because administrators couldn’t find enough staff to provide services to patients.^[vi]
• School bus-driver shortages are forcing parents to drive their children to school, brought on by more flexible driving opportunities with Amazon, Uber, and other employers.^[vii]
• Parents also struggle to find childcare as 100,000 childcare workers have moved onto other available jobs since the pandemic.^[viii]
• Private and public sector employers are scaling back on college requirements, focusing instead on actual skills required for their jobs…and reducing the value of a college degree.

Change is Happening, But It’s Not Enough to Solve the Problem

On the legislative side, at least eleven states have sought to loosen their child labor laws. Iowa for example wishes to allow children as young as 14 to work in meat coolers and industrial laundries,^[ix] whereas lawmakers in Wisconsin believe those same 14-year-olds should be able to double as cocktail waitresses at night.^[x]

On the military side, our U.S. Army is offering up to $50,000 in hiring bonuses for qualified civilians^[xi]…while our U.S. Air Force has modified their fitness requirements by raising the acceptable levels of body fat^[xii]. Our Air Force just got fatter in order to better find and retain recruits.

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Further Reading: The High Cost of Lowering Standards for Retention in the Military, and More

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In my own county north of Orlando, officials are urging us to drive our own recyclables to the dump because they can’t find and retain enough garbage truck drivers.^[xiii] And our sheriff just lowered the age for jail detention officers from 21 to 18 to fill open jobs.^[xiv] The convicts they are guarding will benefit from our worker shortage as businesses are opening their doors to ex-cons, saying more than 80% of them are performing their jobs the same or better than other workers.^[xv] 

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Further Reading: CVS Waives the White Flag on Turnover

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Retention Really is a National Epidemic

Last year, I wrote about how three national pharmacy retailers had cut back on hours for serving their customers because they couldn’t recruit and retain enough staff. These companies call themselves “pharmacies”, CVS being one, and they have much higher profit margins for those pharmaceuticals than they do for mouthwash. Yet they have apparently told their boards of directors they will take a major revenue hit because they can’t solve turnover. Back then I wrote this:

• Do your lead pharmacists want to manage their teams or would they rather just focus on pharmaceutical work?
• If they want to be leaders, have you trained them on leadership skills?
• Do you track turnover by pharmacy, and especially by length of service?
• And most importantly, do you hold your lead pharmacists to employee retention goals?
• And if they fail to achieve those goals, do you coach them or move them out of their leadership roles and replace them with someone who wants to lead a team?

No Getting Around that Retention is Directly Tied to Trust

So now we have pharmacies cutting back on customer service hours as well as profits. Our military ignoring proven methods of retention on one hand but implementing lower standards on the other, which is equivalent to raising pay to fix retention problems – not proven to work long term – as I have covered before.

Here’s an idea. Maybe instead of chasing their tail in an endless cycle of wishful quick fixes, our air force can take to the skies pulling old fashioned banners around the United States that say, “The #1 reason employees stay or leave is how much they trust their immediate supervisor and those leaders become your best retention solution” to get the word out to the truly smart businesses and organizations ready to make real long-term change.

Stay Interviews for Building Trust

If it seems like Stay Interviews are a required bridge for engaging and retaining employees, well…you see right through me because I believe they are. Initially the concept seemed too simple, that supervisors should invite individual employees to meet in order to discuss five questions about their satisfaction with work. “Isn’t that why we do surveys?” some asked. Or “How do we know employees will tell the truth?” But conducting Stay Interviews has proven to open very wide doors toward building TRUST which is the express lane toward engaging and retaining each of your employees – and improving your customer service, too!

Keep the Employees You Have, and Cut Your Turnover by 20% and More

Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com to discuss your employee retention roadblocks and I’ll share ideas for how you can move forward and what is working for other companies to cut turnover by 20% and more that will benefit you and your customers.

[i] https://njbmagazine.com/njb-news-now/75-of-businesses-have-been-affected-by-the-labor-shortage/

[ii] https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/american-airlines-drops-3-cities-service-blaming-pilot-shortage-soft-demand

[iii] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/airlines-pilots-planes-safety-united-delta-southwest-e438ce08?st=kkg8q2fpzxjkhab

[iv] https://www.wsj.com/articles/cvs-walmart-to-cut-pharmacy-hours-as-staffing-squeeze-continues-11674796388

[v] The Week, 6.16.23, page 16

[vi] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/capital/labor-shortages-supply-chain-issues-delay-opening-of-arizona-hospital.html?origin=BHRSUN&utm_source=BHRSUN&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=4079B6123845J6Y

[vii] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/a-districts-bus-disaster-highlights-a-nationwide-driver-shortage/2023/08?s_kwcid=AL!6416!3!602270476281!!!g!!&utm_source=goog&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ew+dynamic+recent&ccid=dynamic+ads+recent+articles&ccag=recent+articles+dynamic&cckw=&cccv=dynamic+ad&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyKurBhD5ARIsALamXaHZJ3s4sNeY2BWdfy29KBZreCQmp6pE9g7xaLnVv4QLjBLOx-Onq2MaAv1ZEALw_wcB

[viii] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/child-care-worker-shortage.html

[ix] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/18/child-labor-laws-targeted-lawmakers-11-states-seek-weaken/11682548002/

[x] https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/jun/05/granderson-kids-may-take-brunt-of-gops-disdain-for-poor/

[xi] https://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Benefit-Library/Federal-Benefits/Bonuses?serv=122#:~:text=Active%20Army%20Enlistment%20Bonus%3A,and%20is%20subject%20to%20change.

[xii] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2023/04/03/fatter-recruits-now-welcome-as-air-force-revises-its-rules/

[xiii] https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/shortage-of-garbage-truck-drivers-leads-to-recycling-items-piling-up-in-altamonte-springs/ar-AA1dP22o?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=473e1c5df204437ba4c1837a7f5f73ad&ei=15

[xiv] https://www.wftv.com/news/local/seminole-county-sheriff-lowers-minimum-age-detention-deputies-hopes-filling-positions/7R4V4BBY55ED5AP3LZNQY53FXQ/

[xv] https://moneywise.com/a/ch-msna/employing-the-formerly-incarcerated?utm_source=syn_msna_mon&utm_medium=Z&utm_campaign=33531&utm_content=msna_mon_33531

How Much Are Worker Shortages Impacting Customer Service Today?

It’s become common to complain about poor customer service, mutterings by those with clear memories of right-in-front-of-me employees who were eager to help. And those who mutter are right because a full 75% of American businesses have already turned away customers or cut operating hours because they can’t hire enough staff, making us wonder how much worse customer service can become.

The post How Much Are Worker Shortages Impacting Customer Service Today? appeared first on C-Suite Analytics.