Irish HR Leaders Say AI Will Bring Role Redesign, Not Major Job Cuts

Most human resources leaders in Ireland do not expect artificial intelligence to shrink their workforces in the near term, according to a national survey by the business group Ibec. Only 4 percent of respondents said they anticipated a significant reduction in employee numbers within the next three years as a result of AI, while a quarter said the technology should have a minimal impact on their workplace structures. The findings were reported on October 21.

The survey covered 325 HR leaders across the country and examined how organizations are adjusting hiring, job design and technology adoption as AI tools spread through workplaces. It offers one of the more detailed pictures so far of how the people responsible for staffing decisions view the changes underway in HR and talent management, rather than how commentators or technology vendors expect them to unfold.

Redesign Over Reduction

One in three respondents foresaw little to no change in headcount, though they expected a significant redesign of existing roles and responsibilities. A separate 3 percent expected employee numbers to rise as AI-specialized roles were integrated into their organizations. Taken together, the responses suggest that many employers see AI changing what people do rather than how many people they employ.

Maeve McElwee, Ibec's executive director for employer relations, said AI and workforce transition remain central to HR operations given the scale of organizational change underway. She said there was genuine confidence that while some roles may change, the narrative of job displacement does not currently match what HR leaders are seeing. She added that the challenge for businesses lies in better understanding how to capture and measure productivity gains from AI across operations.

The survey also examined how AI is affecting recruitment. Thirty percent of respondents said AI integration was not at all driving a shift from experience-based competency assessment toward a skills-based talent strategy. A further 34 percent reported only minor changes or experimentation in hiring, while 17 percent described moderate changes such as individualized approaches by department. That points to a gradual rather than rapid move toward skills-based hiring in Ireland.

Barriers Easing, Privacy Still Tops

Concerns about adopting AI appear to be softening. Data privacy and security remained the leading barrier, named by 55 percent of respondents, but that was seven percentage points lower than a year earlier. The share citing a lack of internal knowledge or skills fell 13 percentage points, from 65 percent in 2025 to 52 percent this year, suggesting that internal capability is becoming less of an obstacle as training and familiarity grow.

For workers, the results imply that the near-term pressure is likely to come from changing job duties, performance expectations and reporting lines rather than from large-scale redundancies. HR departments themselves face a parallel task: measuring whether AI tools actually lift output, and building the internal skills needed to run them, which the survey shows remains a live concern for about half of respondents.

What to Watch

The next signals will be whether the share expecting headcount reductions rises as AI tools mature, and whether the gradual shift toward skills-based assessment accelerates in hiring for professional and administrative roles. Ibec said it will continue tracking employer sentiment. For now, the survey indicates that most Irish HR leaders see the technology as a reason to redesign jobs and retrain staff rather than to cut them.