by Daniil Moskovsky
[REGNUM] The global IT labor market is changing under the influence of the accelerated implementation of artificial intelligence. The statistics are frightening: since January, over 52,000 IT specialists have lost their jobs, and the April wave of layoffs alone took away 23,000 jobs. According to the WSJ, in February 2025, 152,000 IT specialists were looking for work - two months earlier, in December, there were 98,000.
Managers, engineers, testers, juniors and content managers are becoming victims of optimization - mainly in American and European companies. Tech giants - Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla - are no exception: they are also conducting significant staff reductions. McKinsey analysts predict that in a year, artificial intelligence may displace up to a third of specialists from the IT sector.
However, the CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei is much more generous in his forecasts, he predicts the complete disappearance of the programmer profession in a year. According to him, very soon, in a few months, artificial intelligence will write 90% of the program code.
What about Russia?
NO INITIATIVE, NO CREATIVITY
Sergey Markov, director of artificial intelligence technology development at Russia’s largest bank, believes that those specialists whose work is strictly tied to specific technologies and programming languages are most vulnerable to AI.
— Contrary to stereotypes, the development of AI technologies does not affect newcomers more. Motivated newcomers are able to quickly master new technologies. The more vulnerable category is rather mid-level specialists who lack the ability or motivation to develop further, — notes Markov.
In his opinion, in the context of rapid development of AI, the main competitor of such mid-level specialists is becoming a novice developer who uses AI tools in his work.
Alexander Moiseev, chief developer of Russia's largest telecommunications company, is in no hurry to admire the advantages of AI:
— AI is not independent, not proactive, and is not very creative when solving problems that do not have a standard solution. It always solves problems head-on, and even if there is a simple way to get around the difficulties, AI does not see it. In addition, modern neural networks have a limited amount of information that they can work with simultaneously, and some IT specialties require long-term immersion in the project (from a year). In such cases, AI will hardly replace a person.
According to him, in terms of “human intelligence,” AI is at the level of a novice specialist.
— However, when solving standard problems that have a known optimal solution algorithm, even if it is complex (requiring a senior level to write), AI writes easily and very quickly. What would take an experienced developer 8-12 hours, can be done in an hour with the help of AI, — explains Moiseyev. — But does this reduce the need for human developers? No. It simply increases efficiency, and a competitive advantage is achieved by reducing the time and cost of development.
Victoria German, a former mentor at the School of IT Professions, was left with rather sad impressions about the pedagogical potential of AI.
Soon after she joined the company, she said, management began implementing AI to check simple homework assignments and tested an AI tutor to answer students' questions.
— Previously, a mentor was paid a fixed amount for a day of duty. After the introduction of AI, the payment changed, as a result, my income fell by about three times, — Victoria explains.
It's not just this that's offensive. The quality of the AI's work turned out to be a complete failure:
— Students were often irritated by its unclear or incomplete answers. The AI also incorrectly checked homework. And I, as a mentor, had to deal with dissatisfied students whose work was done correctly, but rejected by the system.
PASTURE OF IMPOSTORS
Sergei Markov emphasizes that news about layoffs creates a distorted picture:
— The biggest problem with this news is that you are only told about layoffs, but not about new jobs. The unemployment rate in the tech sector is now lower than it was in 2020.
In his opinion, the current situation on the labor market is mainly a correction after the COVID-19 pandemic, when technology companies were actively hiring new employees.
— AI has nothing to do with it. In the long term, the development of AI technologies will most likely lead to an increase in the number of people employed in the industry, — Markov asserts. — If the development of automation technologies were a “zero-sum game,” we would now have one programmer left in the world who would do all the work. But it is obvious that we have found ourselves in a world where there is not one, not a hundred, or even a hundred thousand programmers, but many more, — he continues.
The transformation of the labor market under the influence of AI, of course, also has negative sides.
— The Jacquard loom during the industrial revolution devalued the skills of many weavers. Many modern AI technologies do approximately the same. Therefore, we will constantly face a situation where the market needs workers with a different set of knowledge and skills than most specialists, — notes Sergey Markov.
In his opinion, this is a rather expensive undertaking:
— The question arises, from whose pocket will retraining or social support be paid for people whose qualifications do not meet the new market requirements? These questions are very important, they cannot be ignored. On the other hand, a lot has changed in the industry over the past few years. Therefore, IT specialists have always lived in a reality where they constantly needed to learn and master new technologies.
Alexander Moiseyev draws attention to another problem, which, in his opinion, is much more serious. According to him, there are thousands of people on the market who have no real experience, but who willingly respond to job postings. They come there with fictitious resumes, taking up time and effort from companies. As a result, hiring slows down, and so does problem solving. Moiseyev calls such would-be job seekers "not-quite-specialists."
According to him, companies that try to hire specialists “as optimally as possible” are especially susceptible to this problem – finding those who ask for a salary below the market, but look competent.
— In such companies, pseudo-specialists sometimes even reach management positions, after which they themselves are responsible for hiring. And this leads to disastrous results.
Interestingly, AI helps impostors in some cases:
“Such employees are hired using AI, and as a result, management doesn’t even realize that people have just recently completed courses,” adds Moiseyev.
WE ARE ADAPTING
Sergey Markov believes that AI does not destroy jobs, but changes the requirements for skills and creates new professional niches.
— The development of AI increases the requirements for flexibility of thinking. In a rapidly developing world, the ability to adapt is most in demand, — he notes.
Among the new professions that are emerging thanks to the development of AI, Markov names developers of systems that combine several AIs and trainers for training AI systems. In his opinion, specialists in the application of generative AI and specialists in protecting the rights of citizens when interacting with AI services will be in demand.
Markov describes how AI is transforming existing areas of the IT market:
— Software development will increasingly use automated assistants that suggest code and solutions. The role of AI in software testing will grow, which means that testers will need to be able to configure and use such systems, and test more complex and specific scenarios. There will be a growing need for people who can check and refine materials prepared by artificial intelligence. This is how the shift from creating a large volume of text to its careful verification and improvement occurs.
Sergei Markov believes that the main condition for adaptation to the new reality is the ability to master new technologies:
— The main part of an individual strategy should be systematic work on mastering new things. Perhaps these are personal projects related to AI technologies, reading literature, getting acquainted with thematic podcasts, but the most important thing is creating your own experience.
Alexander Moiseev emphasizes the importance of honestly presenting one’s qualifications on the labor market:
— Now companies are starting to request extracts from work records on “Gosuslugi”, give technical assignments, check the real experience of applicants. And this really threatens thousands of IT specialists, who a year and a half ago were employees of completely different specialties.
But despite local layoffs, experts agree that a massive increase in unemployment in the IT industry should not be expected.
— All areas of the IT market will be affected by changes. There will be practically no “quiet corners” left in the sphere. But in the long term, the number of people employed in the IT industry will grow, — promises Sergey Markov.