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The head of Japan’s biggest recruitment agency says artificial intelligence will resolve the country’s labour shortages, but has warned its usefulness will be limited until people gain more trust in the technology.
Hisayuki Idekoba, chief executive of Recruit Holdings, said Japan “needs to go all in on AI”, in a Financial Times interview, pointing to successes achieved by employers using its AI tools to attract more job candidates.
But the adoption of artificial intelligence in developed economies will be slower than people expect, he added, with progress being hindered by deeply embedded public mistrust.
“It’s not an issue with progress in technology alone, but it’s also about how humans feel about letting the technology into their lives,” Idekoba said in an interview in Tokyo.
With shortages of workers being reported in various industries across the country caused by an ageing population, Recruit has made a big bet that the use of AI will make it faster and easier to match jobseekers with companies looking to hire.
“The way people search for jobs has not changed for the last few decades and I have always felt that innovation is needed,” Idekoba said, citing cases where people were applying for jobs with the wrong skill sets, while companies could use AI to improve job descriptions.
“I think people will find it easier to accept the back-end use of AI to improve the productivity of human recruiters.”
The Japanese group, a pioneer of digitalisation in bookings for travel, restaurants and hair salons, acquired Indeed, a US jobs site, in 2012 and has been expanding AI services for job searches and matching.
Idekoba said employers who used its AI tools had on average an increase of roughly 16 per cent in applications. Jobseekers were 55 per cent more likely to apply to an AI-recommended job than to a post found in search results, he added.
In January, Recruit launched Indeed plus, a service that uses AI to distribute job adverts more efficiently across various job search websites, enabling quicker matching between recruiters and applicants. In Japan, about 11 per cent of users of Recruit’s service applied for an AI-recommended job.
“I’m finally starting to achieve what I aimed for with the Indeed acquisition,” Idekoba said, adding that he would consider bolt-on technology acquisitions but not a large-scale one aimed at boosting revenues.
Last month, the group said it expected its annual net profit to increase 31 per cent from the previous year to ¥354bn ($2.4bn) while revenue is forecast to slip 0.9 per cent to ¥3.4tn.
Across Japan, companies are having to rethink their entire business models due to a shortage of workers. Thirty per cent of the population is over the age of 65 and pressure is increasing on the quality of essential services and public infrastructure.
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has sounded the alarm on a shrinking labour force and overall population, warning last year: “Japan is standing on the brink of whether we can continue to function as a society.”
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