Khaberni - Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, confirmed that the artificial intelligence boom will provide huge salaries for workers involved in building factories that support this technology, thus becoming the latest advocate for manual skills as artificial intelligence strongly enters office jobs.
Huang, one of the leading voices in artificial intelligence, expressed great optimism about the impact of this technology on the job market, during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Huang said: "This is the biggest infrastructure build in human history, and it will create many job opportunities. It is great that these jobs are linked to manual crafts, and we will need plumbers, electricians, construction workers, ironworkers, network technicians, as well as equipment installation and setup technicians."
He added that there is a "huge surge" in this field, where salaries have nearly doubled, confirming: "So we are talking about huge salaries for workers in building chip factories, computer factories, or artificial intelligence factories."
Job loss concerns due to artificial intelligence dominated discussions at the forum, after technology was considered a contributor to the layoffs of nearly 55,000 workers in the United States by 2025, according to December data from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Companies like Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, and Lufthansa cited artificial intelligence as a key factor in employee layoffs in 2025.
Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, told CNBC: "Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the job market, just like a tsunami, and most countries and companies are unprepared for it."
However, a study conducted by Microsoft in 2025 found that manual jobs are the least susceptible to automation, and consequently more secure from job loss, including phlebotomists, assistants, painters, plasterers, and ship engineers.
The study, which analyzed data from 200,000 conversations with Microsoft Bing Copilot between January and September 2024, focused on how users use artificial intelligence technologies to accomplish tasks, and found that professionals who perform manual work, whether with humans or machines, were the least dependent on artificial intelligence.
Huang said: "Everyone should be able to earn a decent living, and you do not need a PhD in computer science to do that."
Roxana Menzato, Vice President for Social Rights, Skills and Quality Jobs at the European Commission, told CNBC that young people should join vocational training to ensure they can secure these manual jobs, adding: "There are many job opportunities in the vocational field, as I have spoken with semiconductor manufacturing companies that produce communication chips, and they are looking for 75,000 individuals with vocational training - technicians and graduates of various specialties."
When asked about the impact of artificial intelligence on entry-level jobs and the difficulty of entering the job market, she said: "I am not worried about the ability of young people to possess the necessary skills for that."
It appears that manual jobs are more attractive to Generation Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – partly due to the rising cost of obtaining a bachelor's degree in the United States.
CNBC Make It's calculations in 2025 indicated that the annual cost of studying at a local public university for four years had increased by about 30% between 2011 and 2023.
Nick Trember, chief economist at the payroll and benefits management platform Gusto, said: "There are currently about two million fewer students in traditional universities compared to 2011."
In the first quarter of 2024, Generation Z constituted 18% of the workforce according to the U.S. Department of Labor, but they accounted for nearly 25% of all new hires in skilled manual trades that year, according to Gusto data.
