Ignore the AI Doomers: PWC Finds AI Raises Wages as Panic Over Jobs Intensifies

AI is coming for your job, or making it better? Well, it depends on who you ask.

While some headlines scream of an impending job apocalypse, new research from PwC offers a far more optimistic and evidence-backed view. An analysis of over 1 billion job ads and thousands of financial statements finds that industries embracing AI are seeing surging productivity, growing wages, and rising headcounts.

The PWC report arrives as a counterpunch to an increasingly loud narrative driven by AI doomers. This week, tabloids including The Sun amplified claims from Oklahoma State University professor Subhash Kak, who predicted that AI will cause a global population collapse, shrinking the planet’s population from 8 billion to 100 million by the year 2300.

The reasoning? AI and automation will decimate employment, making children unaffordable and accelerating birth rate declines. But critics say the forecast feels more like science fiction—or book promo material—than grounded economics. Kak’s previous ideas include decoding the laws of physics through yogic meditation.

Yet fears over AI-driven unemployment are not limited to fringe voices. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently warned AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. And the numbers, at least in some sectors, raise eyebrows: Oxford Economics recently noted a 24% drop in junior software engineering hires in 2024, and 5.8% unemployment among recent U.S. grads, particularly in AI-affected fields like finance and CS.

Still, the PWC data tells a more nuanced story. Industries integrating AI are seeing 3x higher growth in revenue per employee. Wages in those sectors are growing twice as fast. And contrary to fears, even jobs considered “highly automatable”—like customer service—are expanding.

What’s driving this? Workers using AI report productivity gains of up to 3x. Roles with in-demand skills like prompt engineering now earn a 56% premium. Even more striking: PWC finds job roles in AI-exposed industries are evolving 66% faster than others, signaling transformation rather than destruction.

“The narrative that AI replaces workers is missing the real shift: AI is changing what work looks like,” the report says.

That transformation, however, comes with a caveat: adaptation. Those who evolve with the tech stand to gain significantly. Those who don’t may find themselves displaced.

Even so, with aging populations and a shrinking workforce in many economies, the report suggests AI may strike a “Goldilocks” balance—where job supply matches demographic realities, and wages rise as productivity soars.

So yes, automation may eventually wipe out traditional roles like data entry clerks and junior coders, but if PWC’s data holds, it may just create better-paying, higher-value jobs in their place.

Editorial Note: This news article has been written with assistance from AI. Edited & fact-checked by the Editorial Team.

Interested in advertising with CIM? Talk to us!