AI is cutting jobs. Here are the human skills that still matter

Key points

• Paul, a public sector technical manager, faced a second round of AI-linked job cuts in 2025 while his partner was pregnant and the couple had just bought their first home.
• Employers increasingly cite AI as a cost-saving reason for reducing headcount, not just restructuring roles.
• Researchers point to curiosity, self-awareness and emotional intelligence as the human skills least likely to be replaced by automated systems.
• Emotional intelligence, the ability to read and respond to other people's feelings, is described by workplace psychologists as growing more valuable as AI handles more routine tasks.

Paul did not see it coming the first time. In 2024 his technical management role was restructured away. He found new footing, and then, earlier this year, a wave of media stories landed: his business group was on a cut list again. This time the official communications named AI as a cost-saving tool.

"They say it's not about firing people," he told The Guardian, "but hey, my whole team will go."

The timing was brutal. Paul and his partner are expecting their first child. They had just signed a mortgage.

His story is not unusual. Across public and private sectors, workers are watching AI, software that can now handle research, writing, data analysis and customer queries that once needed a human, absorb the tasks their jobs were built on.

So what do you do with that fear?

Workplace psychologists Gaynor Parkin and Dave Winsborough argue the answer is not to out-code the machine. It is to lean into the things machines still do badly.

They point to three areas.

First: curiosity. Keep seeking new ideas and perspectives, including from sources outside your normal routine. AI can help you explore a topic faster, but staying genuinely engaged with people and the world around you matters more than any prompt you type.

Second: self-awareness, which the researchers call humility. Understand what energises you and where you get stuck. Then ask people you trust for honest feedback: what should you start doing, stop doing, keep doing. This is the kind of reflective loop that no automated system can run for you.

Third: emotional intelligence. This means your capacity to connect with other people, show genuine empathy and communicate with care. Parkin and Winsborough argue this skill becomes more valuable as AI handles more routine work, not less.

Will these skills actually protect your job?

Honestly, no skill is a guarantee. Whole teams, like Paul's, can still disappear regardless of how emotionally intelligent or curious their members are. What these skills do is make you harder to replace in the roles that remain, and more adaptable when roles change.

For Paul the situation is still unresolved. But the broader pattern his story illustrates is real: the workers who fare best in AI-disrupted markets tend to be the ones who invest in relationships, keep learning and ask for feedback before a crisis forces them to.

Machines are very good at processing information. They are still poor at caring whether you are okay.