Automation killed 17,000 roles at a huge tech and services firm -- but no one actually lost their job

Automation replaced 17,000 people's jobs at one of the world's largest professional services and tech firms Accenture over the last 18 months, but no one actually lost their job. Richard Lumb, CEO of financial services at Accenture told Business Insider at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that while greater automation and the rapid development and implementation of artificial intelligence and robots certainly can eliminate jobs in the workforce, companies can also make sure those employees do not become displaced. "Over the last 18 months, automation replaced 17,000 jobs in back office processing. But actually, we haven't laid those people off. We are fortunate enough to reskill and reposition them. We took that approach when we were going to bring in greater automation at scale. Not [every company] is going to be able to do that and not every company is able to grow and expand like we do," said Lumb to BI. Accenture is one of the largest professional services companies in the world and as of 2016, has 394,000 employees with clients from 200 cities across 120 countries worldwide.