AI ‘wage premium’ yet to hit Australian accountants
While accountants with AI skills can expect to find substantially higher-paying work around the world, Australian job postings don’t reflect the same, PwC says.
Based on advertised salaries for job openings, Australia was the only country of five not to offer higher pay for AI-skilled accountants.
Postings for AI-skilled lawyers and financial analysts were also no cushier, but AI-skilled database designers and administrators could expect 14 per cent higher pay.
Sales and marketing manager, applications programmer, and systems analyst roles all offered 7 per cent higher wages when hiring for AI skills.
PwC’s AI Jobs Barometer analysed over half a billion job ads from 15 countries. Relying on 2023 data, it found that workers with AI skills “command significant wage premiums,” and that AI penetration is accelerating most acutely in professional services and financial services.
In the US, AI skills attracted a premium of 18 per cent, followed by 17 per cent in Canada, 5 five per cent in the UK, and 4 per cent in Singapore.
The average wage premium for workers with specialist AI skills across the globe is 25 per cent and the growth in AI-specialist roles has outpaced ordinary roles by 3.5 times since 2012.
The survey also found that ‘AI-exposed’ sectors (those that make some use of AI absent any specialist knowledge or skills) have experienced 4.8 times higher growth in labour productivity in recent years.
“Recently there has been much speculation that AI can supercharge workers’ productivity. The good news is there is now evidence to suggest that this is not just wishful thinking, and is already fast becoming reality,” the report said.
Financial services, IT, and professional services – which have higher AI exposure and penetration on average – are experiencing 5 times faster productivity growth than sectors with lower exposure.
While there is likely more to the story than just the degree of AI penetration in these sectors, the findings accord with similar productivity findings and business sentiment.
According to Nick Abrahams, futurist and global leader in digital transformation at Norton Rose Fulbright, two credible studies have shown that the impact of generative AI alone on knowledge worker productivity ranges between 35 and 50 per cent.
“When steam was introduced during the Industrial Revolution, the increase was only 25 per cent so we are at an inflection point,” he told the ASIC Annual Forum in November.
“For most of us using Microsoft applications, you’ll have a ChatGPT-style capability within it within a year. Imagine waking up and seeing your inbox in the morning and it's already read and drafted responses in your voice because it’s read every email you’ve ever written,” he said.
Eighty-four per cent of global CEOs whose companies have begun to adopt AI expect it to increase employee efficiency, often in transformative ways, according to PwC.
Questions remain over how AI will impact skills shortages, both in accounting and finance and more broadly. The PwC report suggested that the technology will help, not hinder, shortages.
According to a recent Robert Half survey, 74 per cent of workers in Australian finance and accounting are concerned about talent attraction, overtaking tech and business support.
While some fear mass job replacements under the technology, the prevailing sentiment among accountants appears to be that it will augment, not automate, their roles.
This has been referred to as ‘hybrid intelligence’, meaning that the overall impact on accounting roles will be one of enhancement, not replacement.
Just look at AI initiatives launched by the big four accounting firms, from Deloitte’s Cognitive Advantage project which automates routine tasks to allow professionals to focus more on complex activities requiring deeper judgment, to EY’s AI-integrated auditing, and KPMG’s Ignite suite of AI data analysis tools.
Naturally, it has more complex applications as well (and much more likely underway) and will require an uplift in skills as its adoption increases. As noted by Karbon: “The future of accounting is collaborative.”
