Financial Times column says AI could change how jobs are split up

In short: New research suggests many new jobs come from splitting work into narrower roles, and AI could change that pattern.

What's going on

A Financial Times column looks at a long-running question, where do new jobs come from. One idea is that new technology wipes out old work and creates new work. Think of punch-card operators and video rental shop managers, jobs that disappeared after computers and streaming.

Another idea is “specialisation,” meaning big jobs get broken into smaller parts that different people do. It is like a kitchen that grows from one cook doing everything to separate roles for prep, grilling, and desserts. The column says it is often hard to separate these two forces, because technology can also make it easier for specialists to work together.

The piece cites several studies. One study found that in Britain, “clock maker” in the 1500s later split into many more specific roles like “watch engraver” and “watch spring maker.” Another study of the US from 2011 to 2023 found roughly one third of new employment was “technology-related,” based on analysis using a large language model (an AI system that reads and writes text).

A Swedish study covering 1880 to 2019 used AI to score jobs on two scales, one for specialisation and one for new technology. It found that from 1990 to 2019, strongly specialisation-related jobs made up about 60 percent of employment, versus about a third for strongly technology-related jobs. It also estimated that around 70 percent of employment in that period was in occupations that already existed by the end of the 1800s.

What to watch

The column argues that AI may matter most by changing which tasks stay bundled in one job and which get moved out. It could also reverse specialisation in some cases, if AI makes expert knowledge easy enough that people do more work in-house instead of hiring outside specialists.

Source: Financial Times