[ad_1]
The Microsoft brand is seen via glass at Nationwide Retail Federation in New York Metropolis, U.S., Jan. 12. Weekly lunchtime protests exterior Microsoft Korea’s Seoul workplace have turned the corporate into an emblem of a broader unease gripping white-collar staff right here. Reuters-Yonhap
One every week at lunchtime, a small crowd gathers exterior Microsoft Korea’s Seoul workplace, holding protests over fears that synthetic intelligence (AI) might make their jobs out of date.
The weekly demonstration has turn out to be a visual image of the deep anxiousness gripping white-collar staff, notably software program builders and different staff who’re constructing the very AI techniques that might at some point exchange them.
Union officers say about 50 positions — principally software program builders — have been affected by AI-driven restructuring over the previous three years, and so they fear that one other 10 p.c of roughly 550 jobs may very well be in danger because the expertise is rolled out extra aggressively.
“For instance, in a single technical assist division that handles cellphone and e mail queries from prospects utilizing Microsoft merchandise, staff have been instructed to assist prepare an AI agent that can routinely recommend options to issues,” Kwak Chang-yong, secretary-general of the union, instructed The Korea Occasions. “It naturally prompts a query, ‘What’s going to occur to me after I full the coaching?’”
In america, Microsoft, one of many world’s main AI firms, introduced in July 2025 that it might lay off as much as 9,000 staff. In Korea, such large-scale cuts can be far tougher, as labor legal guidelines require firms to display pressing enterprise necessity and comply with strict session and choice procedures.
However many staff at Microsoft Korea concern that their abilities will turn out to be out of date or far much less helpful, Kwak stated. They fear that they might be assigned to work they’re unfamiliar with or to no work in any respect ― a tactic some Korean companies have been accused of utilizing to make staff “go away voluntarily.”
The corporate’s restructuring prolonged past software program builders to incorporate employees within the advertising and marketing and human sources departments, in keeping with the official.
“The present AI growth has not been a lot of a growth for these working in tech firms, at the least by way of job safety and salaries,” stated Kwak, including that Microsoft and different tech giants prioritize investing in AI over the employees who develop and implement it.
Union members are demanding higher job safety and retraining, and have been holding Monday lunchtime protests exterior the Seoul workplace since early December, saying that they’ll proceed till administration accepts their calls for.
Requested concerning the union’s complaints and Microsoft’s restructuring plans within the coming years, the corporate stated it’s innovating responsibly and inside the regulation right here.
“Microsoft creates and sustains high-quality jobs via steady enterprise funding and innovation, whereas assembly the expectations and wishes of its world prospects,” the agency stated in a press release despatched to The Korea Occasions. “Our firm operates a good and aggressive compensation system that takes under consideration numerous components corresponding to function, efficiency and market competitiveness, and complies with all relevant legal guidelines and rules in Korea.”
Microsoft will not be alone.
Throughout company Korea, staff are more and more uneasy. The type of sweeping, AI-driven job displacement many concern has not but materialized in earnest, however anxiousness about it’s clearly on the rise.
A 2023 report by the Korea Growth Institute, a state-funded suppose tank, discovered that almost 39 p.c of as we speak’s jobs contain roles the place greater than 70 p.c of duties can already be dealt with by AI. Wanting forward, the report outlines a extra sweeping risk: By round 2030, practically 90 p.c of duties throughout about 90 p.c of job classes might, in idea, be dealt with by AI.
AI seems to be notably harming job prospects for younger folks.
In a report launched in October 2025, the Financial institution of Korea stated that between 2022 and 2025, jobs for folks aged 15-29 fell by about 211,000, and 208,000 of these losses had been in industries with excessive AI publicity. The findings recommend that automation is enjoying a key function in weakening their job prospects, alongside different financial and demographic components.
[ad_2]
