Lowe’s CEO warns younger employees to keep away from the nook workplace: ‘AI is not going to repair a gap in your roof’

However, in line with Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison, the realities of AI’s affect on the workforce is much extra grounded.

“AI isn’t going to repair a gap in your roof,” Ellison, chief govt of the house enchancment retail big, stated at Enterprise Roundtable’s CEO Workforce Discussion board earlier this month.

“It’s not going to reply to {an electrical} concern in your house,” he stated. “It’s not going to cease your water heater from leaking.”

Significantly for Gen Z, who’re dealing with an uphill battle because of slowed hiring amongst latest graduates, Ellison reassures them there are job alternatives—so long as you’re keen to surrender desires of the nook workplace.

“When younger folks come to me they usually want to work within the company workplace, my recommendation to them is: Keep as near the money register as you’ll be able to,” he stated. “Keep near the purchasers as a result of you’ll all the time have employment alternatives to develop.”

And whereas his phrases could sound ironic contemplating how know-how is the rationale for self-checkout, Ellison is a believer that mastering the abilities AI doesn’t have is a clever transfer.

Ellison didn’t instantly reply to Fortune‘s request for remark.

Rising demand for expert commerce employees

Ellison’s feedback come at a time when there’s a fierce debate amongst enterprise leaders concerning the impacts of AI, particularly on younger expertise. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei has warned the know-how might wipe out half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs and Amazon lately introduced they are going to quickly minimize their company workforce because of the know-how. Nonetheless, OpenAI’s chief working officer Brad Lightcap is extra optimistic.

“We take a look at the issue and alternative of deploying AI into each firm on earth, and we’ve got but to see any proof that individuals are type of wholesale changing entry-level jobs,” Lightcap stated on the Arduous Fork podcast.

Some enterprise leaders agree one rising pathway to success is the expert commerce trade. In any case, development, utilities, in addition to oil, fuel and mining are the fastest-growing industries for brand new grads, in line with LinkedIn’s 2025 Grad Information.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated earlier this yr electricians specifically are so desperately wanted the U.S. might run out of them—thanks partly to rising demand and the deportation of expert employees.

“I’ve even advised members of the Trump workforce that we’re going to expire of electricians, that we have to construct out AI information facilities,”  Fink advised an viewers at CERAWeek, an S&P World vitality convention hosted in Houston. “We simply don’t have sufficient.” 

In response to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for plumbers (6%), roofers (6%), and electricians (11%) is predicted to develop over the following decade—and every charge is quicker than the nationwide common of all occupations.

Nonetheless, a McKinsey report suggests the necessity for younger folks to pursue vital commerce expertise is much more dire because of the getting old of current expert commerce employees; actually, hiring for vital expert roles could possibly be greater than 20 occasions the projected annual enhance in new jobs between 2022 and 2032.