'One in four Hongkongers fear losing their jobs to AI'
Accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on Wednesday said around a quarter of Hong Kong workers fear artificial intelligence will replace their jobs, almost double the global figure of 13 percent. PwC based its findings on a survey it carried out involving almost 54,000 employees worldwide – with 1,000 of them in Hong Kong. "There are areas that people are doing that are manual that AI and automation will take the place of," said Michael Cheng, workforce lead partner with PwC Hong Kong. "In order to solve this problem, it's to ensure constant learning and development for the workforce, in order to prevent not really just the feeling [of fear], but the actuality." PwC also found that hybrid working is more prevalent in Hong Kong than other places in the world.  Seventy-three percent of the Hong Kong survey respondents said they had adopted hybrid working, compared to 59 percent in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, and 54 percent globally. Despite its prevalence, employers are still concerned about the productivity of staff working in hybrid mode, Cheng said. He called on employers to continue experimenting with different modes of working and to offer staff more tools and training on digitalisation.