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The Microsoft brand is seen by means of glass at Nationwide Retail Federation in New York Metropolis, U.S., Jan. 12. Weekly lunchtime protests outdoors Microsoft Korea’s Seoul workplace have turned the corporate into a logo of a broader unease gripping white-collar employees right here. Reuters-Yonhap
One per week at lunchtime, a small crowd gathers outdoors Microsoft Korea’s Seoul workplace, holding protests over fears that synthetic intelligence (AI) might make their jobs out of date.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 nervousness gripping white-collar employees, notably software program builders and different staff who’re constructing the very AI programs that might someday change 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 could possibly be in danger because the know-how is rolled out extra aggressively.
“For instance, in a single technical help division that handles telephone and e-mail queries from clients utilizing Microsoft merchandise, employees have been informed to assist practice an AI agent that may mechanically counsel options to issues,” Kwak Chang-yong, secretary-general of the union, informed The Korea Instances. “It naturally prompts a query, ‘What’s going to occur to me once I full the coaching?’”
In the US, Microsoft, one of many world’s main AI corporations, introduced in July 2025 that it could lay off as much as 9,000 employees. In Korea, such large-scale cuts can be far harder, as labor legal guidelines require corporations to display pressing enterprise necessity and observe strict session and choice procedures.
However many employees at Microsoft Korea concern that their abilities will turn out to be out of date or far much less helpful, Kwak stated.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 employees “depart voluntarily.”
The corporate’s restructuring prolonged past software program builders to incorporate workers within the advertising and human sources departments, in accordance with the official.
“The present AI increase has not been a lot of a increase for these working in tech corporations, a minimum of 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 outdoors the Seoul workplace since early December, saying that they are going to 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 legislation right here.
“Microsoft creates and sustains high-quality jobs by means of steady enterprise funding and innovation, whereas assembly the expectations and desires of its world clients,” the agency stated in an announcement despatched to The Korea Instances. “Our firm operates a good and aggressive compensation system that takes into consideration varied elements resembling position, efficiency and market competitiveness, and complies with all relevant legal guidelines and rules in Korea.”
Microsoft shouldn’t be alone.
Throughout company Korea, employees are more and more uneasy. The sort of sweeping, AI-driven job displacement many concern has not but materialized in earnest, however nervousness 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 right now’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 concept, 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 counsel that automation is enjoying a key position in weakening their job prospects, alongside different financial and demographic elements.
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