Gartner found AI drove staff cuts at 47% of surveyed supply chains, averaging 10.5%. Supply chain managers run the smaller teams.
Gartner surveyed 303 supply chain leaders whose companies already use AI, and published the results on 28 October.
Those that cut staff reported an average reduction of 10.5% over two years. The share reporting fewer entry-level jobs was more than double the share reporting cuts at other levels. Gartner says its top performers are instead giving entry-level staff more skilled work.
Gartner analyst Tess Frenzel said AI "is thinning the entry-level supply chain workforce faster than most chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) are redesigning the talent pipeline."
A week earlier, a study by the Association for Supply Chain Management and the Digital Supply Chain Institute found 83% of respondents say their workers are not ready to use AI effectively. Only 7% expected AI to directly replace human workers.
Our reading for supply chain managers: junior planning and buying seats are where people learn the work senior planners later run. With fewer of those seats, and most leaders in a separate study calling their staff unready, training lands on the same desk as the cuts.
Sources
Our file on Gartner
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