Global labor markets are poised for a new era of turbulence as technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) accelerate the decline of clerical work, while simultaneously increasing demand for technology and cybersecurity specialists.
Over the next five years, nearly one-quarter of all jobs would change as a result of AI, digitization and other economic developments such as the green energy transition and supply chain reshoring, a report published yesterday by the World Economic Forum in Geneva showed.
About 69 million jobs would be created and 83 million eliminated by 2027, resulting in a net decrease of 2 percent of current employment, the Future of Jobs report said.
Photo: Bloomberg
The survey is based on input from about 800 companies employing more than 11 million workers across 45 economies and uses a dataset of 673 million jobs.
While the study expects AI to result in “significant labor-market disruption,” the net effect of most technologies would be positive over the next five years as big data analytics, management technologies and cybersecurity become the biggest drivers of employment growth.
The emergence of AI applications such as ChatGPT, which uses large language models to simulate human reasoning and problem solving, would have a particularly pronounced effect by displacing and automating many roles that involve reasoning, communicating and coordinating, the report said.
About 75 percent of surveyed companies said they expect to adopt AI technologies over the next five years, which they predict would eliminate up to 26 million jobs in record-keeping and administrative positions — such as cashiers, ticket clerks, data entry and accounting.
For now, AI remains a smaller threat to labor prospects than other macroeconomic factors such as slower economic growth, supply shortages and inflation, the report said.
Opportunities for job creation would likely come from investments that facilitate the green transition of businesses, the broader application of environmental, social and governance standards, and a broad reorientation of global supply chains, it said.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
In a red box factory that stands out among the drab hills of the West Bank, Chat Cola’s employees race to quench Palestinians’ thirst for local products since the Gaza war erupted last year. With packaging reminiscent of Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white aluminum cans, Chat Cola has tapped into Palestinians’ desire to shun brands perceived as too supportive of Israel. “The demand for [Chat Cola] increased since the war began because of the boycott,” owner Fahed Arar said at the factory in the occupied West Bank town of Salfit. Julien, a restaurateur in the city of Ramallah further south,
RSS