Latest / Best of Business / Chris Small: ABC Business Sales CEO on the unemployment rate rising to 5.6%, impact of AI

Transcript

Chris Small: ABC Business Sales CEO on the unemployment rate rising to 5.6%, impact of AI · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: All right, let's talk unemployment. Job markets taken another hit.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Remember this is backwards.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Looking global uncertainty and an oil price shocks or many
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: employers put off intentions to hire new workers or creates jobs,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: and that's had a real impact on New Zealanders looking
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: for work.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: So number is five point six percent, highest in eleven years.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: At Chris Small ABC Business Sales co with me this morning, Chris,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: good morning, Good morning, right, Het, very good, Thank you.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Tough out there for a lot of people who are
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: looking for work. Although there are now more people who
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: are looking for work, which could be a good thing
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: or a bad thing, We're not entirely sure.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, it's interesting I think, you know, listening to
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: all the comments for media around number, I think one
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: thing that PEPs hasn't been mentioning we've seen live on
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: the ground is the involvement of AI and what that's
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: doing to sort of white collar os. We've seen a
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: lot of business owners take on that AI, whether it
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: be clawed or check gubt and it's sort of standing
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: to fill a bit of a void for some of
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: their roles and really not encouraging them to go out
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: and high. So I think that's something that needs to
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: be scored into the conversation when you think about this number.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that because Silicon Valley, those guys
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: have said, oh yeah, we're worried about the great job
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: wipe out. But then in the last few months I said,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: now we think, actually, on balance, this will create more jobs.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: You're saying in New Zealand, you're hearing and seeing that
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: AI is coming.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Absolutely so, AI, i'd call AI consultants are relentless and around
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: either Like I'm a business owner with the ninety staff,
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: I'll be getting bombarded at less twice or three times
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: a week by someone promising me a consultancy where they
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: can reduce my staff by three or four people if
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: I bring them in and they put this new system in.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: And I think on the ground, if you talk to
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: any professional services fems around the amount of graduates they're
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: taken on. I know for a fact some of the
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: top four have reduced that number by up to fifty percent.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Because those types of roles you think about, these sort
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: of white collar, low end grunt roles we'd call them.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: We're just if you go through lots of volumes of
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: work that actually can be replaced by AI. So those
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: sorts of roles wouldn't say redundant, but there's certainly this
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: of them and that's contributing to the figure. Fl If
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: you look at those unemployment numbers, South Island's only three
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: point seven percent, largely a woral based economy, while six
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: percent is coming out of the North Pide where you've
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: got the big even centers like Wellington and all climb.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: So I certainly see it as more of a white
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: collar number rather than a overall New Zealand number.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Fascinating and so if you've got kids who are going
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to union and want to become.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Lawyers, absolutely think about it. Yeah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: He on, Ryan, Hey, what about those you said that
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: there's people contacting you and saying, oh, you know, we
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: can have your workforce with an AI consultant. Have you
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: ever taken them up on their offer? Have you sort
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: of investigated further?
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah? To be honest, in that happens, we're fully integrated AI,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: and what I would say is we haven't made off
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: any staff. It's given us more productivity and more capability.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: But well, I've all say, remind us I haven't hired
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: any new staff, which may I may well have done
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: a normal part of the normal part of business when
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: you're growing. I've on you know what AI systems is great.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's allowing me to more production. I don't
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: have to hire anyone else. So I think, to my
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: point before, it's stopping people hiring new people, and potentially
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: down the track, you know, it may well be a
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: sort of as AI evolves and becomes better, you may
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: well be in a position we can reduce that sort
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: of lower end of sort of white collar workers who
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: do that grunt work.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Fascinating. Chris Small ABC Business Stales C Good TV on
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the show this morning.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talks B listen live on air
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: go with our podcast on iHeartRadio