Is AI Stealing Our Jobs, or Are We Just Giving Them Up?

Six months ago, while submitting my IELTS writing drafts to prep for my current journey to New Zealand, my tutor threw a question at me that made me pause: "Did you use AI for this?". I hadn’t, that’s not a big deal, but you know. What I’m thinking is the even educators equipped to “limit” use of AI are worried about it, and paradoxically, they are using AI to detect AI. We are living in a moment where the line between human contribution and machine output is blurring so fast that even educators cannot always tell the difference. In New Zealand, that blurring is now costing people their livelihoods.

New Zealand is not immune. RNZ highlights that among the New Zealand-based employers surveyed, more than half reported that AI was driving significant job displacement and that they were now slowing or stopping entry-level hiring. Stats NZ suggests that the unemployment rate among New Zealand’s 15- to 24-year-olds is around 15% – higher than in recent years and roughly triple that of the wider working-age population. The article also points out that AI is a significant cause of this unemployment rate. AI hasn't necessarily wiped out all jobs, but it is automatically learning repetitive, structured tasks – which are often the primary responsibilities of recent graduates.

So the question now is whether businesses need fresh graduates or just need senior staff and provide them with an AI toolset to save costs. It is now a survival game where individuals must prove their worth is greater than a $15 subscription fee.

Well, it sounds hurt but true. It is an uneven battle, and the odds are heavily stacked against recent university graduates right from the start.

They are forced to learn AI just to compete with AI. But the sharper their AI skills get, the harsher the reality bites: companies don't need a junior middleman. By using AI to boost their own workflow, they unknowingly shut the door on two of their peers. And the ultimate kicker? Once they finish training the company's AI, their own door slams shut too.

Most businesses today are driven purely by revenue and profit. They focus heavily on maximising returns and cutting costs, viewing this as the ultimate model of efficiency. But this drives a major issue: business owners start shifting toward a mindset where they reduce both human labour and AI into dollar signs. When an AI tool can process 500 invoices in the time it takes a human to complete ten, the transactional calculus is straightforward.

It could be illustrated by 8700 knowledgeable bureaucrats are about to be axed by implement AI in governance agencies as RND reported from the disscussion between Roger May (retired forestry consultant of Motueka) and Finance Minister Nicola Willis. The Goverment estimates saving of 2,4 billion NZD, but experts are warning that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The projected savings, which the government pulled out of thin air without any solid backing, represent only the visible part. Hidden beneath the surface is a massive bulk of unseen costs: licensing fees, continuous upgrades, data sovereignty issues, and, more critically, a dangerous reliance on foreign tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic for both infrastructure and talent.

With this approach, leaders are no longer acting as responsible stewards; instead, they have reduced their roles to mere 'profit calculators',actively stripping away their own leadership responsibilities. As the Map of Meaning framework reminds us, meaningful work is never just about productivity. It encompasses connection, contribution, and a sense of being part of something larger. When leaders automate without strategy, they destroy meaning, not just jobs.

The challenge is not lack of good intentions, it is about locked-in way seeing. For many executives, the belief that "efficiency equals progress" is so deeply embedded that questioning it feels like questioning the entire purpose of business. The concept of mental models from Senge (American systems scientist) demonstrate that organisation leaders run the business on the belief that growth is best and technology is progress, which is incredibly difficult for corporate leaders to break free from, as these models serve as the very bedrock of their reputation and power.

That moment of discomfort, I now believe, is exactly where responsible leadership begins. Rather than dismissing it, I chose to sit with it — and to ask the harder question: who else on my team is quietly having the same realisation, and do they feel safe enough to say so?

Based on the principles of servant leadership, my response was not to accelerate my own AI proficiency to harm others, but to open the conversation and make this threat visible so we can face it together.

As Senge warns, the danger is never the event itself; it is the silence around it. If I want others to respond with honesty rather than anxiety, the first move belongs to the leader in the room, and sometimes, that person is me.

So, is AI stealing our jobs? The answer is Yes, but only if we let it happen without a fight.Here is what I am asking you to do starting today.

And the answer to the question in the title, "Is AI Stealing Our Jobs, or Are We Just Giving Them Up?", is perhaps somewhat clarified. AI isn't stealing jobs from humans; rather, humans are misusing AI as a tool to eliminate humanity itself. The future of work in Aotearoa is not yet written. But it will certainly be written by those who step up to shape it, knowing full well that their true worth goes far beyond a $15 subscription to an AI toolset.