AI is shifting the nature of work and the way employers find talent more than it is necessarily reducing overall headcounts. A ZipRecruiter survey found 35% of employers expect AI to grow their workforce, and nearly three-quarters say AI skills are an advantage or requirement. Experts say AI is changing tasks within jobs and transforming recruitment — including more use of referrals and "backdoor references" — which may disadvantage entry-level candidates.
AI May Not Eliminate Jobs — But It’s Rewriting How Employers Find Talent
AI may not take your job, but it could change how you get one, experts say
Artificial intelligence continues to reshape everyday life, and its effects are becoming especially visible in the labor market and in how companies recruit new employees.
A recent ZipRecruiter survey found that 35% of employers expect AI to expand their workforce rather than shrink it, and nearly three-quarters of employers say AI-related skills are either an advantage or a requirement for candidates. Those findings underscore a shift: AI is changing what work looks like inside many jobs even when overall headcounts remain stable.
AI Is Altering Job Tasks and Hiring Methods
Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told NewsNation that the biggest impact she’s seeing is not mass layoffs but changes to the tasks people perform. "We're seeing a lot more impact to work that's being done within a job and how that's changing than headcounts across the board," she said.
Bachaud also warned against attributing recent tech-industry reductions solely to AI. Many employers are still correcting for a pandemic and post-pandemic hiring surge when firms may have brought on too many workers. Still, companies such as Uber and Salesforce have cited workforce reductions in customer support as part of recent shifts — Uber cut about 10% of its customer support staff, and Salesforce's CEO Marc Benioff has said AI enabled the company to remove roughly 4,000 support roles. Bloomberg has also reported similar customer-service reductions at Microsoft in recent years.
Recruiting Is Where AI Might Have the Biggest Impact
Stephen Mihm, a history and labor expert at the University of Georgia, suggested that AI's most significant early effect could be on the recruiting interface — the ways employers discover and evaluate candidates. "In many ways, it probably is AI that is really fundamentally transforming that interface between workers, or prospective workers, and employers," he said.
One increasingly common practice is the use of so-called "backdoor references," where employers lean more on networks, informal checks, and referrals instead of relying solely on resumes and standardized applications. Employers report that resumes are becoming more standardized — in part because applicants use the same tools and templates — making it harder to discern which candidates truly stand out.
Bachaud noted this dynamic can disadvantage entry-level workers who have smaller professional networks and fewer references, while senior-level employees may benefit from stronger established contacts. "We're really seeing AI impacting senior-level workers and entry-level workers differently when it comes to how they're able to access these opportunities," she said.
What Jobseekers Should Know
As hiring practices evolve, jobseekers should consider sharpening AI-related skills, building professional networks, and seeking verifiable references or portfolio work that demonstrates real-world ability. For employers, the changes highlight the need for fair, transparent hiring processes that balance efficiency gains from AI with efforts to avoid screening biases that could exclude promising early-career talent.
NewsNation's Andrew Dorn contributed to this report.
Help us improve.
