IBM to pause hiring for jobs that artificial intelligence could do

  • Hiring in back-office functions – such as human resources – will be suspended or slowed, CEO Arvind Krishna said in an interview
  • IBM currently employs about 260,000 workers and continues to hire for software development and customer-facing roles

The logo for IBM appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photo: AP

International Business Machines Corp (IBM) chief executive Arvind Krishna said the company expects to pause hiring for roles it thinks could be replaced with artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years.

Hiring in back-office functions – such as human resources – will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said in an interview. These non-customer-facing roles amount to roughly 26,000 workers, Krishna said. “I could easily see 30 per cent of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”

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