Overview
- The Ifo-Institut published results on June 12 showing about 19.2 percent of roughly 3,000 German companies that already use AI say it is easy or very easy to replace university graduates with less-qualified, AI-assisted workers.
- Around 15 percent of those firms judge it easy to replace experienced employees with inexperienced staff supported by AI, while a clear majority still sees such replacements as difficult or impossible.
- Sector differences are large: trade and retail report the highest share at 28.6 percent who believe graduates can be readily replaced, followed by services at 19.7 percent and manufacturing at 14.6 percent.
- The survey only sampled companies that already use AI and asked the replacement question for the first time, so the results offer a snapshot of adopters’ attitudes rather than a trend for the whole economy.
- The Ifo findings sit alongside recent corporate job cuts tied to automation, rising pay premiums for workers with AI and emotional-intelligence skills, and regulatory and cost pressures that will shape how firms hire, train, and restructure work.