“The entire automotive industry is expected to lose about 1.78 million workers by 2030." The traditional automotive industry chain will lose 1.53 million jobs. "This is not alarmist. The above is the trend prediction given by Li Zhele, Secretary-General of the Automotive Talent Professional Committee of the China Talent Research Association. The auto industry has been shouting" talent shortage "for years, but the truth is: the shortage has never been just a handful of people at the top, and most ordinary jobs are quietly disappearing at a rate that is visible to the naked eye. According to the statistics and calculations of the Automotive Talent Committee, by the end of 2025, the total number of employees in the automotive industry was about 16.74 million, which was a decrease of 26.3% compared with 2022. Who can stay in the future? Who will be swept out? Who is becoming more and more valuable? 1. The annual salary of millions of top talents preempts those who are becoming more and more valuable. The Automotive Talent Research Council conducted a survey to analyze the top 400 people in various fields in the industry. The conclusion is straightforward: none of them have been cultivated by the school. Behind it is a real problem. The technology iterates too fast, and the course will never catch up with the rhythm of the industry. The most troublesome thing for enterprises is that they have a lot of theories, and their hands are completely blinded. Therefore, the top talents can only be produced in one way: the actual battle. But here's the problem. The top talents that companies have struggled to cultivate are being quietly" picked up "by another industry. In the past year or two, many of the core AI and intelligent driving talents of the ideal car have left one after another, and the direction is highly consistent - intelligent. Ren Shaoqing, the head of NiO Intelligent Driving, also went out and founded the Physical AI Basic Model Company. People trained by the automotive industry at great cost are becoming the foundation of robots. Then how do you rob what's left? The price speaks. In March this year, Xiaopeng directly exposed 40 million annual salary positions at a job fair in Guangzhou, including VLA big model algorithm experts, autonomous driving product experts, and model research and development directors. GAC keeps up with the same field, the person in charge of intelligent driving data mining and the chief engineer of the cockpit system, also starting from the annual salary of one million. The data is more direct. In the main engine factory of the new power, the median salary of undergraduate students is 215,000, the master's degree is 309,000, and the doctorate is 666,000 - 58%, 84%, and 73% higher than that of traditional car companies, respectively. PhDs are paid more than twice as much as Masters. Momenta, Xiaomi Automobile, Huawei, BYD Semiconductor, etc., these companies have been far above the industry average. Therefore, the top talent is always in short supply and always valuable. But this part of the people, originally not the majority. 2. Ordinary positions are being reduced What about ordinary positions? The answer is less optimistic. For example, in 2025, BYD still leads in revenue, sales volume, and profits, jumping to fifth in the global automotive group rankings. But it was the leading car company that quietly did one thing in 2025: cut nearly 100,000 jobs in a year. From 968,900 people to 869,600 people, equivalent to one year, a Great Wall "disappeared" out of thin air. Who are these 100,000 people? Almost all of them are ordinary workers on the production line. Production personnel decreased by 97,200 people, mainly due to the upgrading of production line automation, the contraction of production capacity caused by the decline in domestic sales, and the natural optimization after the past transition recruitment. When the machine comes up, people have to go down. While production line jobs are disappearing on a large scale, technicians are growing on the other side, with BYD adding nearly 19,000 people throughout the year. BYD is no exception, it's just ahead of the curve. According to the calculation of the model of the Automotive Talent Committee, with the improvement of the efficiency ratio and the structural migration, the number of employees in the entire automotive industry is expected to decrease by about 1.786 million by 2030, a decrease of 10.7%. Among them, the traditional parts, vehicle manufacturing, and aftermarket are the areas where the number of personnel is reduced and severely affected. But not all sectors are falling. New energy components and intelligent networking components, on the contrary, are still rising. It is expected that the new energy and intelligent networking industry chain will add about 660,000 jobs in the future - this is good news. The bad news is that these 660,000 new jobs only cover about 43% of the 1.53 million jobs that disappeared in the traditional industrial chain. Therefore, the story of "industrial expansion, more and more people" in the past is coming to an end. 3. AI rewrites "talent standards" Speaking of this, some people may ask: What about ordinary people? On this issue, Zhao Fuquan, Dean of the Institute of Automotive Industry and Technology Strategy at Tsinghua University, gave a judgment: the impact of AI on society is far greater than any previous technology, and the core is that human subjectivity is challenged - not only manual labor is replaced, but also mental labor is being quickly surpassed by AI. But being overtaken does not mean being eliminated immediately, it is a gradual process. Yang Hong, chairman of Hang Sheng Electronics, believes that AI can currently replace 10% to 20% of repetitive work, such as software testing. Enterprises should assume social responsibility and help employees update and transform their knowledge through training, rather than simply reduce their workforce. Because what should really be vigilant is that companies use AI as a shield. Liu Songbo, deputy dean of the School of Labor and Personnel of Renmin University of China, proposed that there is a phenomenon of "AI whitewashing and layoffs" in the current industry. Some companies optimize the packaging of personnel after cycle adjustment and over-hiring as AI-driven layoffs. Real research shows that only a very small proportion of layoffs are really caused directly by AI technology. Zhao Fuquan believes that if enterprises only regard AI as a plug-in cost reduction and efficiency tool, they will soon encounter bottlenecks; the real direction is to evolve to "AI native", with AI as the core to restructure business, processes, human-computer collaboration and decision-making power. He believes that AI is not simply replacing who, but restructuring the talent structure of all walks of life. For ordinary people, in the past we used to talk about ‘ten years to sharpen a sword’. Now that you have practiced your skills for ten years, you may be devalued next year. Therefore, staying where you are and refusing to change is the biggest occupational risk. How much of your role is now infiltrated by AI? Welcome to the comments section. (By/Automobile House Peng Fei).