Microsoft Italy announced the first Virtual Career Fair in Italy. The digital platform, in collaboration with the partner ecosystem, will facilitate for an entire week the meeting between job supply and demand in a constantly evolving market. The objective is to support the growth and development of the country athrough the promotion of digital skills.
Over the past year, more than 700,000 people have taken training courses developed by Microsoft, with 7,000 individuals trained and certified in generative AI technologies. The initiative is part of the AI LAB – Learn, Adopt, Benefit project, which aims to maximize the positive impact of new technologies and support the responsible adoption of generative AI. The Virtual Career Fair offers sessions orientation, information workshops and virtual stands to meet companies looking for new talent in the AI field. More than 20 organizations are participating in the event, with 60 recruiters and 115 job offers focused on Microsoft technology.
During Tuesday’s inaugural event, industry experts, including Marcello Albergoni of LinkedIn Italia and Francesco Baroni of Gi Group Holding Italia, discussed the impact of generative AI on the job market. According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index, 76% of respondents globally feel a need for AI-specific skills, and 79% believe these skills will amplify their job opportunities.
1 in 2 young people are already convinced that AI will contribute to raising general levels of well-being: thanks to AI we will be more productive, efficient and competent in the workplace, according to 48% and 40% of the sample interviewed respectively. Not only that: work loads and pace will tend to decrease, due to an improvement in work well-being, for 40% of under-35s. However, around half of the sample remains skeptical about the actual possibility that the increased well-being can be redistributed and contribute to reducing inequalities.
At the same time, 52%, in addition to AI’s ability to relieve us of the most boring and alienating tasks, fear that it could also replace us in creativity. The theme of impacts on work is central and brings out lights and shadows. Overall, the feeling prevails that the new jobs generated by the spread of AI will not be enough to fill the ‘old’ jobs that we risk losing, with an overall negative balance, even among young people.
Not only, among generation Z and Millenials, 56% (against 27% of skeptics) believe that AI at work will stimulate flexibility and promote work-life balance. The relative majority of young people also believe that in the future AI could be valuable for gender equality, providing assistance in care activities and scrapping traditional gender representations linked to certain professions.
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