In the United States, AI-related job positions have surged by 42% in just over a

Under the AI boom, American companies are vying to hire talent with high salaries.

According to the AI Jobs Tracker at the University of Maryland, in January of this year, 10,404 new AI-related positions were posted across the United States, a 42% increase compared to December 2022 when ChatGPT was just released. However, at the same time, the overall tech talent market is still in a state of decline, with a 31% reduction in new IT-related job postings during the same period.

What positions are the most popular? According to research from the job search engine Indeed, AI job postings are mainly concentrated in the categories of mathematics (including data science-related positions), technology, science, and engineering. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that from 2022 to 2032, the employment rate for data scientists will grow by 35%, far above the average for all professions, with an average of about 17,700 data scientist positions expected to be vacant each year.

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Xia Yuchen, founder and managing director of New Horizon Global Advisory in the UK, told Yicai reporters that AI will contribute to the global economy by increasing labor productivity, promoting product enhancement, and stimulating consumer demand. AI has high potential application cases in fields such as healthcare, automotive, financial services, retail and consumer goods, technology, communication, and entertainment. Therefore, for businesses, it is crucial to understand the significance of AI to their operations and to formulate corresponding strategies, talent, and technological preparations.

Data scientists are in short supply.

Indeed's data shows that since the beginning of 2023, there has been a significant increase in positions related to generative AI. In the months following the public release of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, the proportion of generative AI positions among all job postings on Indeed in the United States has risen from near zero to 0.05%.

Specifically, in the United States, mathematics, including data science-related positions, leads the pack, with almost one in every five AI positions falling into this category. This is followed by software development (12%), information design and documentation (8%), scientific research and development (6%), and industrial engineering (5%).

Trey Causey, head of AI at Indeed, stated that since 2023, as more companies have launched AI-related products to improve work efficiency or customer experience, the demand for data scientists has surged. Many employers and recruiters have indicated that a deep understanding of statistics can be helpful since large language models make judgments based on probabilities. Senior positions may also require management experience.

Julia Pollak, chief economist at the American job portal ZipRecruiter, observed: "In 2021 and 2022, many companies were still testing the waters and deciding whether they could monetize this technology, so a large number of AI-related data scientist positions that were heavily recruited were temporary contract workers or freelancers. Now, businesses have seen the benefits of AI and are beginning to make long-term investments, building AI teams."

According to Indeed's data, data scientists working in artificial intelligence can expect to earn at least $100,000 per year with less than one year of experience. ZipRecruiter sets the average annual salary for entry-level artificial intelligence data scientists at $123,000. The salaries of many senior artificial intelligence data scientists far exceed $200,000. For example, the job advertisement for a senior artificial intelligence scientist at the AI startup Uniphore lists a salary range of $151,000 to $208,000, while the job advertisement for a senior artificial intelligence scientist at GE HealthCare lists a base salary range of $175,000 to $296,000.And now, AI professionals are not only in demand by tech companies. For instance, Walmart's conversational AI team has listed a base annual salary of $168,000 to $252,000 for recruitment, while investment bank Goldman Sachs offers a base salary of $150,000 to $250,000 for AI engineers, plus bonuses.

Resource Tilt towards AI

Although recruitment in the AI field is in full swing, the labor market across the tech industry is not relaxed. Following the large-scale layoffs in 2023, industry giants including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft conducted smaller, more targeted layoffs in January of this year, shifting resources to key projects such as AI.

For example, at the beginning of this year, Amazon laid off staff across various areas, stating that "priorities for all business lines, including AI, are changing." UPS, which plans to lay off about 12,000 people this year, has been increasing its use of AI and machine learning tools. Recently, Apple Inc. abandoned its ten-year-long electric vehicle project and will redeploy some employees to work on AI. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, also stated that the company must control costs in order to "invest in a long-term, ambitious vision centered around AI."

Data from research firm PitchBook also shows that since 2019, about one-fifth of the total acquisitions and investments by the five tech giants Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google's parent company Alphabet, and Microsoft involve AI companies, far exceeding investments in areas such as crypto assets, virtual reality metaverse, and others. Microsoft has one AI-related company in every three transactions, a ratio twice that of Amazon and Alphabet, and more than six times that of Meta.

Xia Yuchen added: "xAI, an artificial intelligence company founded by Musk, claims to have plans for a $1 billion Series A funding round in the near future. This could have a significant impact on the AI market and AI investments in 2024. Moreover, other companies within Musk's business ecosystem, such as electric vehicle company Tesla, aerospace company SpaceX, brain-computer interface company Neuralink, and social media company X (formerly Twitter), possess exclusive massive amounts of data. His involvement could accelerate innovation in the AI field, further attracting the attention and interest of more investors, thereby making the AI sector in 2024 more active and well-funded."

To compete for a development advantage, these tech companies are offering high salaries to AI talents. According to US media reports, Amazon has offered a high salary of $340,300 for a senior manager in applied science and generative AI. Streaming platform Netflix posted a position last August with a salary as high as $900,000, recruiting individuals with extensive experience in machine learning platforms.

"As AI technology becomes more widespread and mature, not only technology providers and innovators, but also companies that can effectively use AI to optimize operations and develop new products and services, could become the winners of the future. Therefore, while companies like OpenAI are at the forefront of advancing AI technology, the real beneficiaries of the AI revolution may be a diverse group of participants, including innovators and adapters in traditional industries," said Xia Yuchen.