AI is leading to redundancies in the EU, but to what extent? While the rapid evolution of AI is undeniable, there are manifold views on the nature and extent of its impact on the modern workplace. Littler’s upcoming 2025 European Executive Employer Conference will discuss trends, experiences, and issues arising in workforce reductions, as well as ways to avoid them, with a focus on AI’s role in the process.
Workforce reductions typically arise from employers’ reducing their costs, harnessing efficiencies, or deploying technologies in new or different ways. AI brings profound improvements to processes as well as many other capabilities, and AI applications can reduce or remove the need for certain roles. They also lead to a need for different kinds of roles. This evolution (or revolution?) is of course already happening and role eliminations and alterations resulting from AI are attracting a lot of attention. While forecasts vary, a huge percentage of global employment is expected to be affected in one way or another by AI in the near term.
A further development is how employers are utilising AI in managing the various key steps to be taken in any redundancy programme. We are already seeing a change. In a headcount reduction exercise AI can be used in a number of ways including in selecting employees from a team, department or business unit. However, this is seen as a high-risk deployment of AI and must be closely managed and curated so as to be defensible under...
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