Workday said in a new Global Workforce Report that AI is reshaping work inside companies more than it is shrinking headcount. The report, released on October 5, says demand for basic AI skills fell 25% this year, while demand for hands-on skills such as building AI tools, automating workflows, and AI engineering rose 51% between September 2025 and July 2026.
The same report says 40% of business leaders expect AI to help them get more out of existing employees, while 28% expect it to reduce headcount. Workday also says moves to new roles inside the same company fell at 57% of employers and promotions stayed flat. In parallel, the number of applicants per filled job rose from a median of 58 in July 2025 to 69 in July 2026, with especially large increases in financial services and in technology and media.
Channel Dive reported the same Workday findings on October 5 and quoted Workday vice president Phil Willburn saying organizations need to acknowledge that roles are changing and give people a way to keep up. Workday’s own blog post on the report says AI and changing skill demands are reshaping roles from within, that internal mobility has slowed, and that the external market remains difficult to break into.
What Workday says changed
The clearest shift in the report is not a broad claim that AI is eliminating jobs everywhere, but a narrower one about which AI skills are gaining value. Workday says basic AI skills declined 25% this year. It also says demand rose 51% for more hands-on work, including building AI tools, automating workflows, and AI engineering, over the period from September 2025 to July 2026.
That is a different signal from generic “AI literacy.” The report’s terms point toward execution, building, and implementation rather than simply using chat-based tools. The supplied sources do not define “basic AI skills” beyond describing the decline, and they do not provide a separate company definition of “AI-building skills” beyond the examples in the report.
Who appears affected
Workday’s report describes effects on both current employees and applicants. For employees already inside organizations, the report says moves to new roles inside the same company fell at 57% of employers and promotions stayed flat. Workday’s blog post adds that internal mobility has slowed, while the external market remains difficult to break into.
For job seekers, the report says application volumes rose. The supplied sources say applicants per filled job went from a median of 58 in July 2025 to 69 in July 2026, with especially large increases in financial services and in technology and media. The research bundle does not identify which specific roles within those sectors saw the largest changes, and it does not say whether the applicant increases were driven by layoffs, return-to-office changes, AI adoption, or any other cause.
What the report does and does not show
The report presents a mixed labor-market picture. On one hand, Workday says a majority of business leaders do not expect AI to cut headcount: 40% expect productivity gains among existing employees, while 28% expect headcount reductions. On the other hand, the report says internal advancement has slowed and the applicant pool per filled job has become denser.
Those findings support a narrow conclusion: employers appear to be reweighting the skills they want. They do not, by themselves, establish a universal schedule for layoffs, a companywide rule about promotion, or a single labor-market outcome for all industries. The supplied sources also do not identify whether the 57% figure refers to a share of employers surveyed, a share of companies in a particular geography, or another specific sample definition beyond what the report states.
Why the distinction matters
Workday’s framing suggests that AI is moving from a general requirement to a more specialized one. If basic prompt-level skills are losing relative value while building and automation skills are gaining, then hiring screens, training budgets, and internal learning programs may increasingly favor employees who can implement systems rather than merely use them. That interpretation is consistent with the report’s direction, but the supplied sources do not separately quantify changes in training budgets or hiring-screen criteria.
For workers, the practical issue is mobility. When internal moves slow and promotions stay flat, employees may face fewer obvious routes upward inside their current organizations. For applicants, a higher median number of applicants per filled job suggests more competition for the same openings. The supplied sources do not say how long these conditions will last.
What to watch next
Future updates to the Workday report, or other labor-market data, may show whether the shift toward AI-building skills continues beyond July 2026. The supplied sources do not identify a follow-up release date or a planned cadence for the report.
It will also matter whether the gap between productivity expectations and headcount expectations widens. In Workday’s figures, more business leaders said AI would help them get more out of existing employees than said it would reduce headcount. That leaves open a key question for employers and workers alike: whether AI is mainly changing how jobs are done, or whether the job market will eventually absorb a larger staffing effect than the current report shows.