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Executive Snapshot
Job postings skyrocketed 61% globally in 2024
projected hiring gap due to lack of supply.
Surging Demand vs. Scarce Supply
Explosive demand for AI/ML talent defines 2025. Job postings skyrocketed 61% globally in 2024 (versus ~1.4% for all jobs), adding to roughly 80% growth in 2022-23. This demand far outpaces the supply of qualified professionals, creating a projected 50% hiring gap, intense employer competition, and a clear seller’s market.
The AI talent shortage directly hits business bottom lines
While AI adopters see nearly 5x higher labor productivity, 40-50% of executives call lack of talent a top AI implementation barrier. This gap slows innovation, raises costs, and creates risks like flawed deployments or security breaches from outsourcing sensitive work. Ultimately, this talent deficit strategically constrains growth, productivity, and innovation—far beyond being just an HR issue.
Key Global Metrics
- Only approximately 22,000 “true AI specialists” were identified globally in a 2022 study, a number dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of open AI jobs.
- About 1.8% of all U.S. job postings now require AI skills, roughly double the share (~0.9%) observed in 2022.
- In tech hubs like Singapore, the demand is even more pronounced, with over 3% of job postings mentioning AI.
- Women represent only 30.5% of the global AI workforce, a figure that has remained stubbornly unchanged since 2016.
Important Trends
The AI talent market, after a brief cooling period in 2023 (partly due to tech sector layoffs), experienced a strong rebound in 2024, with AI hiring returning to growth in most countries.
The release of generative AI tools (like ChatGPT) in late 2022 initiated a new wave of investment and hiring specifically for generative AI-related skills throughout 2023 and 2024.
U.S. job postings explicitly requiring “generative AI” as a skill saw a fourfold increase in a single year, jumping from 16,000 in 2023 to over 66,000 in 2024.
Hiring increasingly focused on “AI-enabled” roles, where companies now expect professionals in fields like software development, product management, and analytics to have AI knowledge, not just individuals in pure AI research jobs.
In summary, the global AI talent gap has widened in 2024–2025, characterized by explosive demand growth, insufficient supply, and rising stakes for businesses. C-level leaders and investors are increasingly recognizing that closing this gap through aggressive recruitment, upskilling, and pipeline development is vital for maintaining competitive advantage in an AI-driven economy.
