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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the AI boom will generate “six-figure salaries” for those building the factories that support it – and will be the ultimate leader in providing skilled trades as AI affects office work.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Huang, one of the leading voices on artificial intelligence, struck an optimistic tone about its impact on the labor market.
“It’s the biggest infrastructure in human history that’s going to create a lot of jobs,” Huang said. “It’s great that the jobs are related to the trades, we’ll have plumbers and electricians, construction and steelworkers, network technicians and people who install and repair equipment.”
Huang said he is seeing a “very significant boom” in the industry, and his salary has nearly doubled.
“So we’re talking about six-figure salaries for people building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories,” he added.
The possibility of artificial intelligence destroying jobs dominated this week’s WEF after the technology was seen as influential. About 55,000 people were laid off In the US in 2025, data from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas for December.
Amazon, Salesforce, Accentureand Lufthansa was among the companies citing AI as the reason Downsizing in 2025.
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Tuesday that AI is “hitting the labor market like a tsunami, and many countries and many businesses are not ready for it.”
However, Microsoft Research 2025 found that blue-collar jobs are less likely to be automated and therefore safer from job cuts and layoffs. The roles listed ranged from phlebotomists to assistants, painters, plasterers and ship’s engineers.
The study, which analyzed data from 200,000 conversations with Microsoft’s Bing Copilot program between January and September 2024, focused on how often users sought help from the chatbot to complete a task. Professionals who worked physically with people or machines were the least likely to trust AI.
“Everyone should be able to live a great life. You don’t need a PhD in computer science to do that,” Huang said.
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Roxana Minzatu, the European Commission’s EVP for social rights and skills, quality work and training, told CNBC in an interview at WEF that young people need vocational training to secure these blue-collar roles.
“There are many job offers in the vocational direction. I have discussed with the semiconductor industry, the manufacturers of communication chips. They are looking for 75,000 vocationally trained people – technicians (and) different degrees,” Minzatu said.
Asked if AI would eliminate entry-level roles and make it harder to enter the job market, he said: “I’m not worried about the younger generation being able to have the right skills for it.”
In addition, it seems that there are blue-collar jobs More appealing to Gen Z — born between 1997 and 2012 — due in part to the high cost of a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. CNBC Make It 2025 estimates show that the annual cost of attending a public four-year public college rose nearly 30% between 2011 and 2023.
“There are about 2 million fewer students at a traditional four-year university now than there were in 2011,” he said. Niche Soaksenior economist at payroll and benefits platform Gusto told CNBC Make It at the time.
Generation Z will make up 18% of the workforce in the first quarter of 2024, according to the labor departmentbut that year accounted for about 25% of new hires for skilled trade jobs, According to Gusto.