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.
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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.
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