Silent Al revolution that could shatter SA's graduate dreams

A MAJOR disruption is unfolding in global white-collar employment. According to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs could vanish in the next five years due to advances in artificial intelligence (AI).

- DR ZAMANDLOVU SIZILE MAKOLA

As detailed in an article on US news website Axios, “Behind the Curtain: A White-Collar Bloodbath”, this isn’t science fiction — it’s a forecast from one of the leading minds in the AI field. South Africa, already battling youth unemployment and graduate underemployment, is ill-prepared for this transformation.

According to StatsSA, South Africa’s youth unemployment rate stood at 45.5% in Q1 2024, and even university graduates struggle to find meaningful, skills-aligned work. Our economy continues to rely heavily on labour-intensive sectors like mining and retail while offering limited pathways into knowledge work. Now, with Al rapidly mastering entry-level professional tasks such as document drafting, basic analysis and customer interaction, the last buffer between graduates and long-term exclusion may collapse.

This shift is not about robots in factories — it is about machines replacing tasks traditionally assigned to junior professionals. Legal clerks, marketing interns, junior auditors and admin graduates’ roles, meant to build workplace experience are increasingly handled by Al systems that are faster, cheaper and tireless. Employers may not downsize immediately, but they are already freezing hiring or redesigning roles to be “Al-first”.

Without access to these steppingstone roles, South Africa’s already marginalised youth may find themselves locked out of the formal economy altogether.

The government, academia and business sectors are largely unresponsive to this looming crisis. Government conversations remain stuck in Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) rhetoric, disconnected from the speed and nature of current technological shifts.