AI technologies will leave 800,000 Hongkongers out of work or looking for new job by 2028, says recruiter

Name: Baidu unveils China’s answer to ChatGPT, sends stocks tumbling
Uploaded: 2023-06-14T22:30:08.000Z
Duration: 2 min 27 s
Description: Baidu unveils China’s answer to ChatGPT, sends stocks tumbling

Data entry clerks, admin staff and customer service representatives are likely to bear the brunt, says the report by IT recruiter Venturenix

‘As AI applications penetrate into various industries, even traditional high-paying professions such as lawyers and translators are affected,’ it adds

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AI-based technologies will affect about 800,000 employees, or 25 per cent of the city’s total workforce, according to the 2023 Hong Kong Salary Guide. Photo: Felix Wong

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 6:30am, 15 Jun 2023

About a quarter of Hong Kong’s workforce will find themselves unemployed or having to change career in the next five years as artificial intelligence (AI) takes over their jobs, according to a study by recruitment firm Venturenix.

Data entry clerks, administrative staff and customer service representatives are likely to bear the brunt of the rapid shift to digitalisation as their jobs are eliminated in the coming years, said the report.

AI-based technologies will affect about 800,000 employees, or 25 per cent of the city’s total workforce, according to the 2023 Hong Kong Salary Guide published on Wednesday.

“As AI applications penetrate into various industries, even traditional high-paying professions such as lawyers and translators are affected,” said the report by Venturenix, a recruiter that focuses mainly on information technology (IT). “Illustrators and content creators are also more likely to be replaced.”

The huge popularity of ChatGPT, a so-called large language model released to the public by Microsoft-backed OpenAI late last year, has heightened fears of massive job losses because it and similar technologies have the ability to converse like humans.

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Baidu unveils China’s answer to ChatGPT, sends stocks tumbling

“The number of jobs [affected] is not a surprise because AI and other new digital technologies are bringing big changes to many industries,” said Yin Ran, an angel investor in Shanghai. “To be honest, it is not easy to name an industry that will not be affected by AI.”