Tech giant Infosys admits automation is dramatically reducing hiring needs

Despite many advocates for artificial intelligence and automation playing down the long-term risk to employment levels, Indian tech giant Infosys has revealed its early adoption of the technology has already dramatically reduced the numbers of people it is hiring. In an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, Infosys chief operating officer Pravin Rao said the deployment of artificial intelligence was instrumental in it cutting its annual hiring of new full-time staff by more than 10,000 in 2016-17. Mr Rao said the company hired 6000 full-time employees in 2016-17, down from 17,000 the previous year and had averaged numbers between 15,000 and 20,000 in the years since the global financial crisis. "Our industry's growth is down a bit too, hence the lower number, but we do think the big investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning we've made in the last two years means our number of new recruits will be below 10,000 a year from now on, at least for the foreseeable future" Mr Rao said.