April 7, 2026
Written by Simon Peter
Artificial Intelligence isn’t coming for jobs someday. It’s already changing who gets hired, who gets laid off, and which skills still matter, right now.
Across the globe, AI is moving beyond factory automation into white‑collar, professional, and knowledge‑based work. Roles built around routine analysis, administration, customer interaction, and even junior professional judgment are being redesigned or removed as AI systems deliver the same outputs faster and cheaper. The disruption isn’t limited to low‑skill work, it’s climbing the value chain.
What makes this moment different is speed. Companies are restructuring faster than workers can realistically reskill. Entry‑level roles are shrinking, career ladders are breaking, and many people aren’t being “upskilled”, they’re being pushed out. The world’s most powerful technology companies, the very organisations building AI, are simultaneously the biggest agents of AI-driven layoffs. In 2025 alone, 783 layoffs at tech companies impacted nearly 246,000 workers globally (674 per day). So far in 2026, the rate has accelerated to 736 people per day. The pattern is unmistakable: companies report record AI-driven profits in the same quarters they announce layoffs. Efficiency gains are flowing to shareholders — not workers.
For South Africa, this shift is especially dangerous.
We enter the AI era with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, extreme youth unemployment, and a workforce heavily concentrated in sectors most exposed to automation — banking back offices, retail, call centres, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. At the same time, access to digital infrastructure and advanced skills remains deeply unequal. That combination turns AI from a productivity story into a social risk.
Yet this isn’t a story of inevitable decline.
Globally, demand is rising for skills that complement AI rather than compete with it: analytical thinking, creativity, technological literacy, adaptability, leadership, and continuous learning. Workers who can use AI as a tool, not be replaced by it, are already earning wage premiums and accessing global opportunities.
The real question is not whether AI will transform work. It’s whether we move fast enough to prepare people for the work that remains.
My call to action:
· Governments must treat AI literacy like national infrastructure.
· Businesses must invest in reskilling, not just efficiency.
· Workers, especially young South Africans, must see lifelong learning as essential, not optional.
The decisions we make in the next few years will shape whether AI deepens inequality or becomes a lever for inclusive growth.
At ETS, we believe leadership in the AI era means expanding opportunity, not shrinking it. That’s why we are focused on creating internships and early‑career pathways, investing in practical, future‑relevant skills, and helping young people gain real exposure to the tools shaping the global digital economy. Our goal is simple: ensure South African youth are not just spectators in the AI revolution, but participants with skills that travel across borders.
If we focus our innovation on empowering people, not just replacing them, AI can usher in the most inclusive era of economic growth in modern history. The decisions made in the next five years will determine whether the future is one of shared prosperity, or deepening division.
Which path do you think South Africa is currently on — and what needs to change?
