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Siemens warns AI could leave young workers without essential job skills

People chief Judith Wiese says young employees need hands-on experience with routine tasks to assess work produced by AI later in their careers.

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Published 20 Oct 2026, 09:26 BST2 min read

Judith Wiese and Julian Willner on stage at Web Summit in Lisbon. — Judith Wiese and Julian Willner on stage at Web Summit in Lisbon in 2022; file photograph. Ramsey Cardy / Web Summit / Sportsfile, "2022 - Remote RC2 1226 (52476866289)" (resized and converted to WebP). CC BY 2.0.Image source Image licence: CC BY 2.0

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Siemens executive Judith Wiese warned on October 20 that giving routine entry-level work to artificial intelligence could leave young employees without skills they need later in their careers, DW reported. Her concern is that workers who have not done those tasks themselves may struggle to judge the work AI produces.

Wiese, Siemens’ chief people and sustainability officer, said hands-on experience matters even when technology can take over a task. For software developers, she said, writing their own code is part of learning how to examine code generated by AI critically. ‘The crucial question is always: What do I need to have done, checked and seen myself to avoid being misled by AI?’ she said, according to DW.

How Siemens is training young workers to use AI

Siemens said in a September 1 announcement that it had integrated AI into its career-training curricula so young people would develop AI skills as part of their professional training. The company said around 4,000 apprentices and dual students were participating in its German work-study programs. That approach puts AI alongside the practical learning Wiese says young workers still need.

The company said it offers more than 90 training programs in Germany and invested about €135 million in professional training during fiscal 2025. Those figures describe the scale of Siemens’ training effort; Wiese’s warning concerns what young workers may miss if routine work disappears from their early jobs.

What Wiese said about jobs and productivity

Wiese also described ways AI could help employees. It can speed up work, support the exploration of new ideas and make projects possible that otherwise would not be, she said. She added that AI could help employees acquire skills more quickly, while older colleagues could learn from younger workers who grew up using the technology, DW reported.

Wiese said it was too early to determine AI’s effect on employment. Siemens has about 30,000 software engineers, she noted, and higher productivity could mean doing the same work with fewer people or doing more with the same workforce. Her warning focused on preserving the experience workers need to check AI’s output, rather than a forecast of how many jobs will change.