In past industrial revolutions, job displacement has tended to impact lower-skilled and entry-level workers first before making its way to other areas. This was the expected pattern for AI. However, a joint report by the ESRI and Department of Finance has found that AI adoption among Irish firms is likely to lead to job losses concentrated among highly educated workers, reflecting the high level of exposure of high-skilled occupations to AI technologies.
Other experts are not so sure. According to senior research manager in the employment unit at Eurofound, John Hurley, at present AI appears more likely to be a net contributor to employment in Europe, although he admits that down the line this will ultimately depend on how the technology is adopted and scaled up by firms.
“So far, there is little evidence of widespread job displacement,” Hurley says. “In fact, reviewed studies suggest that the employment effects of AI have been small but generally positive.” Research carried out by Eurofound has mostly found that, rather than triggering mass lay-offs, companies are mainly adjusting through job redesign, organisational changes and internal mobility.
In Ireland, notwithstanding recent volatility, Hurley says employment growth remains strong in AI-exposed sectors, including information and communication, as well as professional, scientific, and technical activities. The job-reduction plans of Ireland’s “big tech” firms have been well covered by media both in recent months and since 2023, Hurley says. “These are also evident in Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor [ERM] but in most cases these firms remain active recruiters and employ more now than they did pre-Covid.”
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AI is cited as a driver of job reductions in only a limited number of large-scale redundancies captured in the ERM – TikTok has, for example, cited AI as reducing its need for human content moderators in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Another ongoing trend, highlighted by the ERM, is the growth of highly paid, skilled jobs; a pattern that Hurley says has been evident for over a generation but appears to have quickened over the past decade. “This trend of job upgrading is expected to continue, driven by rapid technological change, which increases demand for high-skilled workers, either because their roles complement new technologies or require advanced skills to operate them.”
This tracks with research carried out by PwC, says Laoise Mullane, director, workforce consulting and AI adoption lead. She notes that PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer showed that AI was reshaping the global labour market into two distinct paths.
“AI is creating a ‘two-track’ labour market: ‘professionalised’ roles, in which AI acts like a force multiplier for experts, requiring more human-intensive skills, see greater growth across headcount than ‘democratised’ roles, in which AI makes the role itself easier for non-experts to perform,” she explains. Companies most able to use AI are seeing faster headcount growth than the least AI-exposed companies – 52 vs 36 per cent.
“At the same time, ‘superstar companies’ most exposed to AI achieved labour productivity gains of 163 per cent, significantly outpacing other businesses.”
Jobs requiring specific AI skills – such as prompt engineering or machine learning – have soared, growing roughly eight times as fast as the overall jobs market. Sectors including technology, media and telecommunications, and professional services saw the highest share in AI job growth – with health at the lowest end.
“The research also shows that in Ireland, roles which include AI-related skills tend to be associated with higher advertised salaries, particularly in more AI-exposed industries such as technology and financial services,” Mullane notes.
Aidan O’Shea, founder and chief executive of Otonomee, a customer management partner for scaling businesses, says AI has helped to augment much of what the company does.
“It has actually made our services more valuable, our people more effective and many of our roles more interesting and fulfilling for our people,” he says. “Globally, however, in our industry AI can do the work of managing more simple, repetitive tasks that don’t require judgment, empathy or other human power skills.” These tasks were previously handled by people in lower-cost, offshore locations, he says, where there is “no doubt that jobs have been displaced by AI”.
O’Shea says there is an imperative to invest in AI education for students, new entrants to the workforce and experienced professionals. He also points out that AI “presents an opportunity like never before” for younger entrepreneurs in Ireland to establish and scale a global business. “As a nation, we need to work harder to provide supports and incentives for entrepreneurs to succeed.”
