What happens when AI can do your job faster, cheaper, and around the clock?
Companies are already adopting AI to automate tasks, cut costs, and rethink the type of human talent they actually need. At the same time, courts and policymakers are beginning to wrestle with a difficult question: how far should we go to protect employees and existing jobs from technological change?
Protecting employees and jobs exactly as they are today is futile. It cannot delay the inevitable effect of AI on the workforce. AI is not going away. People need to learn to work alongside it, move into new roles, and try to stay valuable as the labor market changes.
This blog discusses why protecting people and jobs from AI is not a viable long-term strategy, why reskilling and upskilling are a shared responsibility, and what it will take to prepare the workforce for the AI era.
When AI Replaces a Person in a Job, Who’s Fault Is It?
AI is changing how people work. In many cases, it is also challenging whether certain jobs are needed at all. As companies introduce AI tools to automate tasks and increase efficiency, a difficult question is bothering both boardrooms and courtrooms: can a company legally let an employee go because AI can perform the work instead of them?
This blog does not constitute legal advice. The answer depends on the laws and regulations of the specific jurisdiction and the individual circumstances of each case.
In one case in China for example, a graphic designer in Guangzhou lost his job after the company adopted AI tools. The employee challenged his dismissal and the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court upheld a ruling in his favor. The court found that adopting AI to respond to market changes was a business decision and did not qualify as the type of “major change in objective circumstances” that would legally justify terminating the employee. The court also said employers should consider alternatives to layoffs, such as reassignment or upskilling before ending an employment contract.
In another case, an AI quality inspection supervisor at a fintech company in Hangzhou was demoted and had his salary reduced after AI changed the company’s staffing needs. When he rejected the new terms, he was dismissed. Labor arbitration and the courts found the dismissal unlawful, and the company was ordered to pay him more than 260,000 Yuan, roughly US$38,000 in compensation.
These cases raise an important debate and some difficult questions. Is protecting employees from dismissal the right way to go? Is it fair or unfair to lay off employees when their skills are no longer needed due to AI’s increasing capabilities? Can legal measures realistically protect people and jobs from technological change? Whose responsibility is it to help people develop the AI skills they need or transition to jobs that are still needed in the AI era?
Upskilling and Reskilling are a Shared Responsibility
Trying to preserve jobs as they exist today is not sustainable. AI changes almost every job and every industry. According to the World Economic Forum, AI and automation are expected to displace 92 million jobs while creating 170 million new ones.
A better approach is to make people adapt as technology changes jobs and skills. That means upskilling workers so they can use AI effectively in their current roles, and reskilling those whose jobs are lost or no longer needed so they can move into new positions or industries, even if they don’t have relevant experience in these new fields.
If AI can perform in minutes a task that takes a person hours or even days to compete, why would we deliberately choose the slower and more expensive manual option? It’s not effective. If a marketer can use AI to generate a first draft of a campaign, or a developer can use it to write and debug code, it makes little sense to ignore those tools simply because the task used to require more human labor. When new tools and better ways exist, the logical response is to learn how to use them well.
For-profit companies are expected to maximize profits. Employees and labor costs are part of the resources businesses need to manage efficiently. In capitalist markets, the primary goal of a company is not to employ as many people as possible or guarantee their financial security, but to build the right workforce to operate effectively and create value for shareholders.
Employers have a strong incentive to help their workforce adapt. If they want to retain experienced employees, protect institutional knowledge, and avoid constantly replacing people, it makes sense to invest in upskilling. Teaching existing employees how to work with AI can be faster and more cost-effective than hiring an entirely new workforce. And if AI makes an employee’s current role less necessary, that does not automatically mean the company needs to lose that person. Reskilling a strong employee for a different role can be a smarter option than starting again with a new hire.
Colleges, universities, and training centers also play a critical role because people need accessible ways to learn the skills that the labor market demands. Traditional degrees alone cannot always respond quickly enough to rapidly changing technologies. Institutions can help by giving their academic offerings an AI update and offering shorter, practical courses for people who need to upskill or reskill. In return, institutions can attract new students, respond to employer demand, and improve graduate employment outcomes.
Governments also have an interest in helping people transition rather than simply dealing with unemployment after jobs disappear. They can make reskilling and upskilling more accessible through funding, incentives, and workforce development initiatives. In the U.S., for example, the Workforce Pell Grant was launched, allowing eligible students to use federal aid for approved short-term workforce programs connected to in-demand occupations. Initiatives like these can reduce the financial barrier to reskilling and upskilling while helping economies build the talent needed for changing industries.
People, however, cannot wait for an employer, university, or government to manage their career for them. They need to stay open to learning, adapting, and receiving upskilling opportunities as their profession changes. If an employer offers AI upskilling opportunities or new tools become relevant to their role, workers should be willing to engage with them. They should also take initiative by experimenting with AI tools, researching how their profession is evolving, or watching online tutorials. The key is to stay curious and be willing to develop new skills as the workplace changes.
Ultimately, it is a shared responsibility to protect people and jobs from AI. But people carry the greatest responsibility for their own employability. No employer, college, or government can make someone learn, adapt, or change direction, if they do not want to. To stay relevant in the AI era, people need to take an active role in developing new skills and learning to work alongside AI.
Preparing the Workforce for the AI Era with Wawiwa
Wawiwa is a global education provider that supports colleges, universities, and training centers across the U.S. and around the world with education solutions built for the AI era.
Wawiwa offers applied AI programs and courses designed around industry trends, employer needs, and the changing workplace. Examples include the Enterprise AI Implementation Specialist and AI Product Manager programs. Wawiwa also provides practical AI courses for professionals across a wide range of fields, including HR, finance, and marketing, helping people apply AI effectively within their specific roles.
Short, practical courses can be one of the fastest ways to help people adapt. Employees do not always need to go back to college for several years to remain relevant. In many cases, they need focused upskilling that teaches them how AI is changing their profession, which tasks they can automate, and how to use AI tools effectively and responsibly. At least for now, AI still needs people to instruct it, evaluate its outputs, apply judgment, and take responsibility for the final result. The employee who knows how to do that is naturally in a stronger position than the worker who refuses to use the technology.
Consider a copywriter whose manager realizes that AI can produce first drafts, headlines, emails, and other everyday copy in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost. The copywriter can fight to preserve the role exactly as it existed before, potentially even challenging the employer in court, as we have seen in other AI-related employment cases. That didn’t work for horse carriage drivers over time… A person can ask a more useful question: what skills will make me valuable in the AI era? They could upskill and become much better at directing, editing, and improving AI-generated content, or reskill altogether. Someone with no previous technical experience, for example, can reskill to become an AI Full-Stack Developer in 9 months, or an Enterprise AI Implementation Specialist in 4 months.
Adapting does not mean pretending disruption is easy or that every worker can change careers overnight. Life constantly asks us to adjust: when people become parents, move to a new country, change careers, or face a new economic reality, they reorganize their lives around circumstances that have changed. AI is another major change of that kind. If technology can now perform parts of your job, the long-term answer is to learn how to work with it, move toward tasks that still require human skills, or build an entirely new set of capabilities.
