IMF presses governments to step up support for workers displaced by AI

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The rise of AI is already hitting pay and employment in occupations exposed to automation, research from the IMF has found, as it urged governments to give more support to workers who lose their jobs because of the technology.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said policymakers should also look at redesigning education so young people entering the workforce could use AI “rather than compete with it”. 

“The stakes go beyond economics. Work brings dignity and purpose to people’s lives. That’s what makes the AI transformation so consequential,” she said in a blog published ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders and executives in Davos in Switzerland next week. 

The fund analysed millions of online job postings and workers’ profiles in six economies: the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Brazil and South Africa. 

Its analysis is significant because research on the impact of AI on the jobs market has so far been drawn largely from the US, where its adoption is most advanced.

Previous research has not found any conclusive evidence of AI leading to widespread lay-offs, although some studies point to a clearer effect on entry-level hiring and specific occupations, such as software development.

The IMF’s analysis found one in 10 job postings demanded at least one new skill that barely existed a decade ago, such as IT-related skills or social media management in marketing.

Increased demand for these broader skills was positive for wages and employment, the IMF said. Postings that included a new skill attracted a wage premium of 3 to 3.4 per cent in both the US and UK. 

But when the IMF examined postings requiring only AI-related skills, higher demand for these did not raise the overall level of employment. It led to job losses in occupations where workers were most vulnerable to being replaced entirely by the new technologies, the fund said. It did not detail which professions were most exposed, although it said entry-level jobs had a higher exposure to AI.

After five years, employment was 3.6 per cent lower in regions with greater demand for AI-related skills than elsewhere, the IMF found. 

“While these [AI] skills command wage premiums, they have not contributed to employment growth so far, like other new skills have,” Georgieva said.

She urged greater support for workers displaced by AI to retrain and move to new opportunities — while also stepping up social protection.

Job postings suggested there would be more demand for workers able to use AI than for those directly engaged in developing it, the IMF said.

This meant young people would need “cognitive creative and technical skills that complement AI and help them use it rather than compete”, the fund added.