AI will not trigger a jobs collapse, Adecco argues

TL;DR:

• Adecco, the world’s largest staffing company, says AI will not cause an employment collapse, framing it as a shift in tasks and roles rather than mass job destruction.
• Chief executive Denis Machuel warned that entry-level office jobs are most exposed, and that cutting them recklessly would damage talent pipelines.
• He suggested some firms are using AI as cover for cuts driven by weak performance or restructuring.

The head of the world’s biggest recruiter has pushed back on the idea that AI is about to hollow out the workforce. Adecco’s study, published on Thursday, argues that three and a half years after ChatGPT’s release, employment across OECD economies is near record highs and unemployment near historic lows.

Reshaping, not eliminating

Machuel’s central claim is that AI changes what jobs involve more than whether they exist. “A job apocalypse is not on the horizon,” he said, comparing the moment to earlier waves of steam, electricity and the internet that transformed work without mass destruction. He also offered a sharper observation: some companies are blaming AI for layoffs actually caused by weaker trading or restructuring — a caveat worth holding against headline figures that attribute nearly a quarter of US job cuts this year to the technology.

His warning about entry-level roles is the most actionable part. Junior positions are the most automatable, but they are also where organisations grow their future senior staff. Cutting them to bank short-term savings, Machuel argued, damages the pipeline that firms depend on.

The UK counterpoint

Adecco’s optimism sits within a live and contested UK debate. Early British labour-market data is genuinely mixed on whether AI augments or replaces, and policymakers are hedging: the Mayor of London has backed a £30m taskforce to shield jobs while employers warn of a widening AI skills gap. Adecco’s prescription — upskilling and reskilling, closer work between firms, government and education — maps directly onto that agenda.

Looking forward

The reassuring aggregate hides real churn at the entry level, and Adecco’s own warning acknowledges it. The measure of whether the “no collapse” thesis holds will be whether companies redesign junior roles around AI or simply delete them — and whether the talent pipeline survives the choice.