The conclusion is that one particular group of highly educated workers is especially vulnerable. In the US, there has been a 13 per cent drop in the hiring of young employees aged 22\u201325 within customer service and IT, and this trend is linked to the introduction of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The question is whether the same group of highly educated workers in Denmark should be worrying about their future job prospects.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence has the potential to accelerate the transformation of the entire labour market exponentially<\/p>\n
Christian Lyhne Ibsen, associate professor at the Department of Sociology<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The University Post asked associate professor Anna Ils\u00f8e from the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) about the prospects for new graduates finding and keeping a job in the Danish labour market when they are up against AI:<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe study shows that the hiring slowdown affects office-based jobs, which also include university graduates. But anyone who works with computers could be impacted.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Anna Ils\u00f8e has researched digital labour markets at the Employment Relations Research Centre (FAOS) for many years, and she and her labour market researcher colleagues have already observed AI-related changes in parts of the Danish labour market.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIt appears that the jobs most affected by AI here are those in programming and IT, customer service, office-based jobs, and finance,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n
AI will affect Europe differently<\/h4>\n
Anna Ils\u00f8e reckons that Europe will tackle the AI challenge in a different way than the US in the coming years however.<\/p>\n
In the US, Amazon recently laid off thousands of office workers, but no drivers or warehouse staff were let go \u2014 as their manual, practical work could not be replaced by AI. The remaining office staff, on the other hand, were expected to deliver more per paid working hour, as AI made it possible to automate many of their tasks, thereby increasing productivity requirements.<\/p>\n
But according to Anna Ils\u00f8e, we are unlikely to see the same thing happening in Danish companies \u2014 at least not in the near future.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIn a European and Nordic context, companies will stop hiring new employees instead, with existing staff being retrained and upskilled so they can work alongside AI,\u00ab she says, and continues:<\/p>\n
\u00bbExperienced employees are also unlikely to be at high risk of dismissal, because they know how to solve the problems that AI cannot handle, and they know how AI can help the company tackle challenges.\u00ab
\n
\nAnother question is how AI will impact the labour market in the long term \u2014 in Denmark, the Nordic countries, and Europe.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWe don\u2019t know yet, but you can easily imagine that in the future we might move towards something resembling what we\u2019re seeing in the US today,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n
Knowledge-intensive jobs lost in new ways<\/h4>\n
Anna Ils\u00f8e\u2019s research colleague, associate professor and centre director Christian Lyhne Ibsen at FAOS at the Department of Sociology, has also read the Stanford University paper, which he finds thought-provoking.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIt\u2019s not surprising that new technology leads to job losses in Denmark. What is surprising is that employees in knowledge-intensive positions may soon start losing their jobs in a different way than before,\u00ab he says, and adds:<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe types of knowledge-based tasks that are also standardisable \u2014 which we have so far outsourced to Eastern Europe or India \u2014 will no longer be sent away. Instead, they will be handled by artificial intelligence, and this will have consequences for how companies structure themselves.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Shields senior roles, sidelines entry-level staff<\/h4>\n
In the past, it was mainly manual and unskilled industrial jobs that were offshored<\/span> to low-wage countries. This resulted in job losses in high-wage countries like Denmark.<\/p>\nBut according to Christian Lyhne Ibsen, the nature of offshoring has changed. Now it is also jobs that require high knowledge levels that are being offshored from high-income to low-income countries.<\/p>\n
He uses legal work as an example. Tasks in this area are being relocated from the US to countries like India, where language skills and legal expertise are competitive.<\/p>\n
This has contributed to the job structure in US law firms switching from a pyramid shape \u2014 with many low-paid employees at the bottom and a few high-paid staff at the top \u2014 to a diamond shape: narrow at the top and at the bottom, but wide in the middle. The shift takes place mainly at the bottom, and this is not good news for newly graduated law students looking for their first job.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWith AI, companies can automate knowledge work and, in the process, cut labour costs. There are still only a few people at the top, but far fewer new employees are being brought in at the bottom levels. Experienced employees in the middle can continue to move up the ranks however,\u00ab says Christian Lyhne Ibsen.<\/p>\n
Replacement jobs for AI<\/h4>\n
The new diamond-shaped structure can also be explained by the fact that law firms still need experienced mid-level employees to verify and sign off on all the legal specifications produced by AI.<\/p>\n
Beyond the individual examples, AI could also pose a challenge simply due to the speed in which the changes are happening.<\/p>\n
\u00bbAutomation and offshoring have for a long time led to job turnover when jobs are relocated abroad, are taken over by machines, or are replaced by new jobs. But artificial intelligence has the potential to accelerate the transformation of the entire labour market exponentially,\u00ab says Christian Lyhne Ibsen.<\/p>\n
He has been thinking about how AI might shape the future:<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe big question is whether we can come up with new job roles that only humans can do \u2014 fast enough \u2014 so that artificial intelligence doesn\u2019t end up creating mass unemployment\u00ab.<\/p>\n
This article was first written in Danish and published on 13 January. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.<\/em>
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","name":"real-person-and-person-made-from-binary-code","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":185609,"date":"2026-01-12 17:56:22","modified":"2026-01-13 10:40:43","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1254,"height":836,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375.jpg","large-width":1254,"large-height":836,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375.jpg","1536x1536-width":1254,"1536x1536-height":836,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375.jpg","2048x2048-width":1254,"2048x2048-height":836,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-290x193.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-700x467.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/istock2185001375-990x660.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"Programming and IT, customer service, white-collar roles, and finance are at risk as AI is rolled out. The good news is that experienced employees can use AI to become more efficient \u2014 and keep their jobs."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"","text":"H\u00f8jtuddannede 22-25-\u00e5rige i USA mister deres arbejde til AI, viser ny unders\u00f8gelse fra Stanford University. S\u00e5 slemt ser det ikke ud i Danmark endnu, men AI kan p\u00e5 l\u00e6ngere sigt f\u00f8re til massearbejdsl\u00f8shed, mener dansk sociolog.","use_post_excerpt":true},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Years of discussion about AI\u2019s impact on the labour market have led to contrasting visions of the future \u2014 some optimistic, others deeply dystopian.<\/p>\n<p>There has been little solid data to back up these scenarios however. Until now. A study, ‘<a href=\"https:\/\/digitaleconomy.stanford.edu\/publications\/canaries-in-the-coal-mine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence’<\/a>, authored by three researchers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California shows how AI impacts job opportunities by using data on millions of employees from ADP, the largest United States payroll provider. This has given the researchers a large and reliable dataset.<\/p>\n<p>The conclusion is that one particular group of highly educated workers is especially vulnerable. In the US, there has been a 13 per cent drop in the hiring of young employees aged 22\u201325 within customer service and IT, and this trend is linked to the introduction of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<h4>Danish white-collar workers<\/h4>\n<p>The question is whether the same group of highly educated workers in Denmark should be worrying about their future job prospects.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Artificial intelligence has the potential to accelerate the transformation of the entire labour market exponentially<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Christian Lyhne Ibsen, associate professor at the Department of Sociology<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The University Post asked associate professor Anna Ils\u00f8e from the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) about the prospects for new graduates finding and keeping a job in the Danish labour market when they are up against AI:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe study shows that the hiring slowdown affects office-based jobs, which also include university graduates. But anyone who works with computers could be impacted.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Anna Ils\u00f8e has researched digital labour markets at the Employment Relations Research Centre (FAOS) for many years, and she and her labour market researcher colleagues have already observed AI-related changes in parts of the Danish labour market.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt appears that the jobs most affected by AI here are those in programming and IT, customer service, office-based jobs, and finance,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<h4>AI will affect Europe differently<\/h4>\n<p>Anna Ils\u00f8e reckons that Europe will tackle the AI challenge in a different way than the US in the coming years however.<\/p>\n<p>In the US, Amazon recently laid off thousands of office workers, but no drivers or warehouse staff were let go \u2014 as their manual, practical work could not be replaced by AI. The remaining office staff, on the other hand, were expected to deliver more per paid working hour, as AI made it possible to automate many of their tasks, thereby increasing productivity requirements.<\/p>\n<p>But according to Anna Ils\u00f8e, we are unlikely to see the same thing happening in Danish companies \u2014 at least not in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIn a European and Nordic context, companies will stop hiring new employees instead, with existing staff being retrained and upskilled so they can work alongside AI,\u00ab she says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbExperienced employees are also unlikely to be at high risk of dismissal, because they know how to solve the problems that AI cannot handle, and they know how AI can help the company tackle challenges.\u00ab<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":186228,"id":186228,"title":"DSC_4250 Anna Ils\u00f8e sociolog","filename":"dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-scaled.jpg","filesize":769068,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-scaled.jpg","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/forskningsresultat-ai-presser-unge-kandidater-ud-af-arbejdsmarkedet\/dsc_4250-anna-ilsoee-sociolog\/","alt":"","author":"8","description":"","caption":"Anna Ils\u00f8e har kontor p\u00e5 Sociologisk Institut, CSS, hvor hun leder forskningsprojekter, der unders\u00f8ger digitaliseringens konsekvenser for arbejdsmarkedet. Hun har ogs\u00e5 lavet komparative studier af den danske arbejdsmarkedsmodel i forhold til den tyske, amerikanske og australske arbejdsmarkedsregulering.","name":"dsc_4250-anna-ilsoee-sociolog","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":185609,"date":"2026-01-11 13:45:06","modified":"2026-01-13 10:41:07","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2560,"height":1806,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-480x339.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":339,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-768x542.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":542,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-1280x903.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":903,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-1536x1084.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1084,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-2048x1445.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":1445,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-290x205.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":205,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-700x494.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":494,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc_4250annailsoeesociolog-990x698.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":698}},"style":"narrow","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"Anna Ils\u00f8e has her office at the Department of Sociology on the central CSS campus, where she leads research projects examining the impact of digitalisation on the labour market. She has also conducted comparative studies of the Danish labour market model in relation to labour market regulation in Germany, the United States, and Australia."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Another question is how AI will impact the labour market in the long term \u2014 in Denmark, the Nordic countries, and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe don\u2019t know yet, but you can easily imagine that in the future we might move towards something resembling what we\u2019re seeing in the US today,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<h4>Knowledge-intensive jobs lost in new ways<\/h4>\n<p>Anna Ils\u00f8e\u2019s research colleague, associate professor and centre director Christian Lyhne Ibsen at FAOS at the Department of Sociology, has also read the Stanford University paper, which he finds thought-provoking.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s not surprising that new technology leads to job losses in Denmark. What is surprising is that employees in knowledge-intensive positions may soon start losing their jobs in a different way than before,\u00ab he says, and adds:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe types of knowledge-based tasks that are also standardisable \u2014 which we have so far outsourced to Eastern Europe or India \u2014 will no longer be sent away. Instead, they will be handled by artificial intelligence, and this will have consequences for how companies structure themselves.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h4>Shields senior roles, sidelines entry-level staff<\/h4>\n<p>In the past, it was mainly manual and unskilled industrial jobs that were <span title=\"When companies move tasks or entire factories out of a country\">offshored<\/span> to low-wage countries. This resulted in job losses in high-wage countries like Denmark.<\/p>\n<p>But according to Christian Lyhne Ibsen, the nature of offshoring has changed. Now it is also jobs that require high knowledge levels that are being offshored from high-income to low-income countries.<\/p>\n<p>He uses legal work as an example. Tasks in this area are being relocated from the US to countries like India, where language skills and legal expertise are competitive.<\/p>\n<p>This has contributed to the job structure in US law firms switching from a pyramid shape \u2014 with many low-paid employees at the bottom and a few high-paid staff at the top \u2014 to a diamond shape: narrow at the top and at the bottom, but wide in the middle. The shift takes place mainly at the bottom, and this is not good news for newly graduated law students looking for their first job.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWith AI, companies can automate knowledge work and, in the process, cut labour costs. There are still only a few people at the top, but far fewer new employees are being brought in at the bottom levels. Experienced employees in the middle can continue to move up the ranks however,\u00ab says Christian Lyhne Ibsen.<\/p>\n<h4>Replacement jobs for AI<\/h4>\n<p>The new diamond-shaped structure can also be explained by the fact that law firms still need experienced mid-level employees to verify and sign off on all the legal specifications produced by AI.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the individual examples, AI could also pose a challenge simply due to the speed in which the changes are happening.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAutomation and offshoring have for a long time led to job turnover when jobs are relocated abroad, are taken over by machines, or are replaced by new jobs. But artificial intelligence has the potential to accelerate the transformation of the entire labour market exponentially,\u00ab says Christian Lyhne Ibsen.<\/p>\n<p>He has been thinking about how AI might shape the future:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe big question is whether we can come up with new job roles that only humans can do \u2014 fast enough \u2014 so that artificial intelligence doesn\u2019t end up creating mass unemployment\u00ab.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was first written in Danish and published on 13 January. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.<\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with upcoming events and top University of Copenhagen stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":4539,"name":"Working environment","slug":"arbejdsmiljoe-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4539,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":95,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11488,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":672,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/aipressernuungekandidaterudafarbejdsmarkedetudvalgtbillede.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186505"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186661,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186505\/revisions\/186661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}