Britain's M&G in strategic deal with Japan's Dai-Ichi Life
The partnership is also expected to deliver US$2 billion of new business flows for Dai-Ichi Life over the next five years, it said.
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The Star
13 minutes ago
- The Star
Is AI causing tech worker layoffs? That's what CEOs suggest, but the reality is complicated
If you read the typical 2025 mass layoff notice from a tech industry CEO, you might think that artificial intelligence cost workers their jobs. The reality is more complicated, with companies trying to signal to Wall Street that they're making themselves more efficient as they prepare for broader changes wrought by AI. A new report Wednesday from career website Indeed says tech job postings in July were down 36% from their early 2020 levels, with AI one but not the most obvious factor in stalling a rebound. ChatGPT's debut in late 2022 also corresponded with the end of a pandemic-era hiring binge, making it hard to isolate AI's role in the hiring doldrums that followed. "We're kind of in this period where the tech job market is weak, but other areas of the job market have also cooled at a similar pace,' said Brendon Bernard, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. "Tech job postings have actually evolved pretty similarly to the rest of the economy, including relative to job postings where there really isn't that much exposure to AI.' The template for tech CEO layoff notices in 2025 includes an AI pivot That nuance is not always clear from the last six months of tech layoff emails, which often include a nod to AI in addition to expressions of sympathy. When he announced mass layoffs earlier this year, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach invited employees to consider the bigger picture: "Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday." Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost explained that a need to shift resources to "accelerate investments' in AI was one of the reasons the company had to cut 1,350, or about 9%, of workers. The "Why We're Doing This' section of CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz's announcement of 5% job cuts said the cybersecurity company needed to double down on AI investments to "accelerate execution and efficiency.' "AI flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster,' Kurtz wrote. It's not just U.S. companies. In India, tech giant Tata Consultancy Services recently characterised its 12,000 layoffs, or 2% of its workforce, as part of a shift to a "Future-Ready organisation' that would be realigning its workforce and "deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves.' Even the Japanese parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor has cited an AI shift in its notice of 1,300 layoffs at the job search and workplace review sites. AI spending, not replacement, is a more common factor Microsoft, which is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, has announced layoffs of about 15,000 workers this year even as its profits have soared. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees last week the layoffs were "weighing heavily' on him but also positioned them as an opportunity to reimagine the company's mission for an AI era. Promises of a leaner approach have been welcomed on Wall Street, especially from tech giants that are trying to justify huge amounts of capital spending to pay for the data centres, chips and other components required to power AI technology. "It's this sort of double-edged sword restructuring that I think a lot of tech giants are encountering in this age of AI, where they have to find the right balance between maintaining an appropriate headcount, but also allowing artificial intelligence to come to the forefront,' said Bryan Hayes, a strategist at Zacks Investment Research. Google said last week it would raise its budget for capital expenditures by an additional US$10bil (RM42.5bil) to US$85bil (RM361.5bil). Microsoft is expected to outline similar guidance soon. The role of AI in job replacement is hard to track One thing is clear to Hayes: Microsoft's job cuts improve its profit margin outlook for the 2026 fiscal year that started in July. But what these broader tech industry layoffs mean for the employment prospects of tech workers can be harder to gauge. "Will AI replace some of these jobs? Absolutely,' said Hayes. "But it's also going to create a lot of jobs. Employees that are able to leverage artificial intelligence and help the companies innovate, and create new products and services, are going to be the ones that are in high demand.' He pointed to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is on a spree of offering lucrative packages to recruit elite AI scientists from competitors such as OpenAI. The reports published by Indeed on Wednesday show that AI specialists are faring better than standard software engineers, but even those jobs are not where they have been. "Machine-learning engineers - which is kind of the canonical AI job - those job postings are still noticeably above where they were pre-pandemic, though they've actually come down compared to their 2022 peak,' said Bernard, the Indeed economist. "They've also been impacted by the cyclical ups and downs of the sector.' Economists are watching for AI's effects on entry-level tech jobs Tech hiring has particularly plunged in AI hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Boston and Seattle, according to Indeed. But in looking more closely at which tech workers were least likely to get hired, Indeed found the deepest impact on entry-level jobs in the tech industry, with those with at least five years of experience faring better. The hiring declines were sharpest in entry-level tech industry jobs that involve marketing, administrative assistance and human resources, which all involve tasks that overlap with the strength of the latest generative AI tools that can help create documents and images. "The plunge in tech hiring started before the new AI age, but the shifting experience requirements is something that happened a bit more recently,' Bernard said. Microsoft, which is staking its future on AI in the workplace, has also had its own researchers look into the jobs most vulnerable to the current strengths of AI technology. At the top of the list are knowledge work jobs such as language interpreters or translators, as well as historians, passenger attendants, sales representatives, writers and customer service representatives, according to Microsoft's working paper. On the other end, leading in work more immune to AI changes were phlebotomists, or healthcare workers who draw blood, followed by nursing assistants, workers who remove hazardous materials, painters and embalmers. – AP
New Straits Times
13 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
Samsung says tariff agreement reduces uncertainty, expects boost from Tesla deal
SEOUL: Samsung Electronics said a trade deal between South Korea and Washington will help to alleviate business uncertainty, as the technology giant forecast more major chip orders after signing a US$16.5 billion deal with Elon Musk's Tesla. US President Donald Trump said the US will charge a 15 per cent tariff on imports from South Korea as part of the deal that eases, for now, tension with a top-10 trading partner and key Asian ally. Imports from South Korea, a powerhouse exporter of computer chips, cars and steel, had faced a 25 per cent rate. The tariff deal comes days after Tesla said it had signed a deal to source chips from Samsung, a move that analysts said could help the tech giant's struggling contract business. "Building on this milestone, we anticipate securing additional orders from large customers," Samsung Vice President Noh Mi-jung said on an earnings call, referring to its struggling contract chipmaking business. Samsung's new U.S. semiconductor factory in Texas, which is expected to make chips for Tesla, is on track to begin production in 2026, she said. "The key to the Tesla order is how much Samsung would be able to address production yield issues for its advanced 2 nanometer chips," said Greg Roh, head of research at Hyundai Motor Securities. The Texas project is central to Samsung Chairman Jay Y. Lee's strategy of expanding beyond its bread-and-butter memory chip business into high-end contract chip manufacturing, which is dominated by Taiwan's TSMC. Noh's comments came after the company posted 4.7 trillion won (US$3.37 billion) in operating profit for the April-June period, its weakest earnings in six quarters. That was roughly in line with an earlier estimate that had disappointed investors. The South Korean tech giant forecast a gradual second-half recovery for its overall business, without providing further details. Second-quarter operating profit at its chip division plunged 94 per cent from a year earlier, it said, hurt by delays in supplying the latest AI chips to Nvidia and U.S. export curbs on advanced semiconductor sales to China. FOCUS ON AI CHIPS Prolonged weakness in Samsung's performance has deepened investor concerns over the South Korean company's ability to catch up with smaller rivals like SK Hynix in developing high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI data centres and sold to customers including Nvidia. Last October, Samsung said it was making progress on a major deal to supply HBM3E chips to an unidentified customer that analysts said was Nvidia. Samsung on Tuesday did not give an update to the plan, while warning that the supply of HBM3E chips has been growing faster than demand, which would affect pricing. The tech giant said it has also provided samples of its next-generation HBM4 chips to customers, with a plan to supply them next year. Customers for this chip are also expected to include Nvidia, analysts said. Samsung said on Thursday it expected the industry environment would improve in the second half of the year, driven by AI chip demand due to continued investments by major cloud service providers. Meta Platforms and Microsoft on Wednesday pointed to strong AI chip demand and major investments in data centres in their earnings announcements. Samsung said there were also some concerns about slowing global growth due to an uncertain trade environment and geopolitical risks. "We believe that the uncertainty has been reduced through the conclusion of negotiations between the United States and South Korea," Samsung Chief Financial Officer Park Soon-cheol said after Trump announced the trade deal. Park said Samsung was closely monitoring a U.S. national security probe into imports of semiconductors and electronics such as smartphones, tablets and PCs, which he said could have a significant impact on its businesses. Samsung's second-quarter revenue rose 0.7 per cent to 74.6 trillion won, in line with its earlier estimate of 74 trillion won. Its chip division posted a profit of 400 billion won during the quarter, down from 6.5 trillion won a year earlier, marking the first time in six quarters the figure has dropped below the 1 trillion won mark. Samsung said in a statement inventory value adjustments to memory chips and one-off costs from the impact of US. export restrictions on sales to China on its contract chipmaking business lowered the division's profit. Samsung said smartphone demand, which had rebounded in the first half thanks to stockpiling ahead of US tariffs and China subsidies, is expected to see slowing growth in the second half. For TVs, Samsung expected demand to slightly decline due to inflation and economic uncertainty in the second half from a year earlier. Shares of Samsung were down 1.8 per cent in early afternoon trade, underperforming the benchmark KOSPI index, which was 0.5 per cent lower.
New Straits Times
13 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
China Galaxy, CICC plan over US$1bil investment funds in Southeast Asia
SINGAPORE: State-backed investment banks China International Capital Corp and China Galaxy Securities plan to launch funds worth a total of more than US$1 billion in Southeast Asia, seeking to grab a slice of a lucrative market amid a US tariff war. The move heralds a shift in investment focus for the banks, typically focused on the domestic market, and comes as Beijing encourages its financial champions to support outbound investment and deepen regional economic ties. Units of CICC and China Galaxy expect to launch the investment funds over the next 1-1/2 years, a top executive and a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. "As the tariff wars continue and Chinese corporates accelerate their 'China plus N' strategy, they seek local expertise in Southeast Asia," said Carol Fong, chief executive of CGS International, a unit of China Galaxy Securities. Such regional knowledge will aid efforts to expand in areas such as supply chain and distribution, she added. 'China plus N' refers to Chinese companies' diversification strategy to expand supply chains and operations beyond their home country to mitigate geopolitical risk. CGS is looking to launch next year a private equity fund of up to US$1 billion that aims to facilitate investments and capital flows between China and Southeast Asia, Fong added. The fund will target high-growth sectors such as healthcare, AI, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy and consumer, offering investors exposure to emerging opportunities across both China and Southeast Asia, she said. The banks' push into Southeast Asia also underscores Beijing's efforts to boost regional ties since U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled hefty import tariffs in his global trade war that targeted China with even heavier levies. China and the United States agreed in May to pause some tariffs, but the region of 11 countries with a population of more than half a billion is increasingly becoming a target for Chinese companies seeking growth overseas. "Southeast Asia's huge market and growth potential presents a big opportunity for Chinese firms," Fong said. CICC Capital, the private equity investment arm of CICC, is partnering with government agency Malaysia Digital Economy Corp to set up a fund of size targeted at US$100 million, an official of the country's digital ministry told Reuters. It will invest in Malaysia's gaming industry, the official added. Separately, CGS International is teaming up with Fullgoal Asset Management Hong Kong and Bursa Malaysia to ease the listing of foreign-underlying ETFs in Malaysia, particularly those offering China exposure. The first such listings are expected within 12 to 18 months, pending regulatory clearance, Fong said. China is Southeast Asia's largest trading partner, with annual two-way trade rising 12 per cent to US$982 billion in 2024, Chinese customs data shows. Malaysia has secured 2.97 billion ringgit (US$702 million) in confirmed investments from leading Chinese technology companies, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing its digital ministry. The funds will go to develop artificial intelligence capabilities and next-generation digital infrastructure, and create 6,800 high-value digital jobs, the ministry added.
