Is AI coming for your job? | DW Business

advances in technology and the emergence of green economies will further disrupt labor markets in the coming years and turn retraining workers into one of the highest priorities for businesses and governments well that's according to the world economic forum's newest future of jobs report released today Saudia zahidi is managing director of the world economic forum and one of the co-authors of that report and she joins me today Saudia welcome to the show um before we we dive deeper into the report I want to ask you if you could briefly sort of summarize um what the biggest takeaway is from this report this is the first one since the I guess quote-unquote end of covet I don't know if we can say that what should we take away from it it's obviously been a very disruptive period but there is more disruption to come that's essentially what we find with a quarter of job you go through some kind of a change about 12 likely to decline and about 10 percent that are likely to grow all right so a lot of disruption in this report I want to talk about one of the first points that I saw on this report is this idea of Divergence within labor markets uh based on skill now we know that there's always been a gap in incomes and and outcomes for workers based on skill level higher skilled workers tend to earn better than lower skilled workers should we be concerned that that Gap is getting bigger and bigger with new technologies uh and then in fact it's becoming a golf I think it's very clear that there is a hollowing out happening off um the labor market based on skills levels in the the last few years it's really been about this concern around industrial robots displacing those that work in factories for example now to some extent there's been that displacement but to some extent there's also been a lot of growth in terms of the advanced manufacturing Workforce a very similar pattern is now emerging when it comes to artificial intelligence where those that are at the lower end of the skills around administrative and secretarial work now risk being disrupted by AI especially generative Ai and at the same time there's a lot of growth in higher value ad roles so we're seeing a very similar inflection point now and so there is some of that risk but the net result is still positive when it comes to technology impacting jobs um you mentioned the the this this disruption that is this idea that uh jobs are going away jobs are coming in uh due to factors such as technology the green economy taking root um why is it that we see a net positive instead of a net negative when we look at for example automation that's obviously something that's in the headlines we look at what's happened with generative AI um I imagine a lot of viewers have the feeling that they're going to be fewer jobs because they might be taken over especially on the lower skill level yeah so this is where um half of the companies that we surveyed actually expect technology to be a net job Creator and about quarter expect technology to be a net job Destroyer so overall I think the Outlook is positive rather than negative especially when it comes to overall numbers and I think in part this is because of the possibilities of the application so some of the largest gains in jobs are going to come for example from the agriculture sector about 4 million new jobs some of the largest gains are in education about three million new jobs when it comes to the Green Revolution about 1 million new jobs and each one of these roles is going to be in part enabled by these Technologies so I think it's not quite as simple as technology taking away people's jobs there's a lot of additional augmentation and growth across sectors that technology will also create when we talk about sectors like education and agriculture areas in which we might see more job production in the years ahead as you just said how are uh what kind of quality jobs are these going to be teaching for example has not generally been a high paying job so we're going to see more people shifting into new jobs produced in that area but at the same time they're maybe taking a step backwards in terms of quality of life quality of livelihood you know some of the highest growth in teaching is coming from vocational education teachers as well as University and higher education these tend to be higher paid roles than for example primary and secondary school teachers but that is not to say that there shouldn't be a societal investment in upgrading for example the wages in teaching in nursing and some of the other professions that have traditionally been undervalued but are actually critical especially if we're going to develop the human capital in future Generations that prepares them for the future of work your report lists some of the job titles that could be affected that is those that could increase and those that we're less likely to see as we move forward I want to go through a few of those those job titles that we might see less of are generally in the secretarial and administrative roles such as banking tellers clerks postal clerks cashiers ticket clerks data entry clerks now compare that to job titles we might see more of they're largely technology related Ai and machine learning Specialists sustainability Specialists that's more green economy business intelligence analysts and information security Specialists um so as you've been saying there are opportunities for job growth provided that people can retrain this seems to be a big a big point of this report our businesses and governments preparing for this massive training burden that they'll need to take on I think it's clear that both workers themselves and businesses have evolved the last time we did this report three years ago versus today it's clear that much more investment is going into reskilling and upskilling by companies but it's not always the reskilling and upskilling that workers will need to be able to transition into a new role the company is investing in what they need and the skills they will need for the future but that doesn't mean that somebody who is being displaced is going to be able to get that from their current employer and that's where governments need to step in and that needs to be at a much larger scale than what is currently happening today and it needs to be more sophisticated than what is happening today at the moment most countries are providing some level of an income safety net most are providing access to some kind of lifelong learning and some kind of support through career and job centers but this needs to happen at a completely different scale and these three things need to be brought together the income safety net the career advice as well as the reskilling and upscale the good news is it actually can be done relatively fast again using the very technologies that are disrupting jobs when we look at women and men when it comes to disruption that we expect to see will they likely be equally affected it's very clear that thus far they have not been equally affected and women have lost out more when it comes to the pandemic related disruptions and the industries that essentially never recovered it's also clear that um when it comes to some of the lower skilled lower paid work that is likely to be disrupted by artificial intelligence you name some of those roles they tend to be larger employers of women than of men and so even looking at the future disruption there are likely to be gender differences and that is where again reskilling and upskilling efforts will need to be targeted and it needs to start much earlier there needs to be more focus on getting girls and young women into technology much earlier in schooling and in University is it also possible that technology could actually outpace our ability to train for it that is that my job is automated or I don't have I don't have the ability to work in the same fashion I train for something new but then that becomes irrelevance in the near future we've been partnering for the last few years with companies like Coursera with companies like LinkedIn and really trying to understand how fast can some of this reskilling actually happen to your point do we all need to wait for new four-year degrees or is it something that can be adjusted in three or four months and I think that's where there really is a massive promise in online learning and credentialing again provided that governments actually take that seriously and start providing good certifications around some of that online learning employers because of the very tight labor markets and advanced economies and because they're facing Talent shortages are actually starting to accept a lot of those online learning and training certifications and the good news is most of them are done in a few months including for pretty sophisticated new set of skills are you seeing economies can you name economies that are taking the kind of steps forward with training that you've talked about to this point so it's very clear that the Nordic economies that have always been ahead of the curve in terms of human capital development have also stayed ahead of the curve throughout the course of the pandemic and now continue to do so the flex security model for example that exists in Denmark um and in other parts of of the Nordic economy so that's certainly working well the forum's also been working with a number of Emerging Markets as well as developed economies to actually put in place some of these models so that they can be taken elsewhere in the world we're working with about 15 economies at the moment from Greece and India and Pakistan to Brazil that are also starting to put some of this in place for specific sectors in their economies and we know of course it's not just technology that's disrupting many of these job sectors but also the growth to make our economies Greener and we're seeing a lot more manufacturing coming on board when we think about all the wind turbines heat pumps electric cars that need to come onto the markets and also be installed and repaired um are we seeing a kind of period of the end of the end of manufacturing because uh when I grew up in the U.S it was always manufacturing was something that was on the decline it was in the rear view mirror and we were moving towards a service economy but it seems like now there's a lot more manufacturing coming are we seeing a lot more of these jobs that could be produced in the future a lot more investment by governments in forms of manufacturing and infrastructure development there's sort of a rise of industrial policy again in a lot of the western world that we haven't seen in the last few decades so there is a lot more money a lot more investment a lot more Finance going into the space and to your point very much with the aspiration to get towards a Greener economy so there is that that increase but I also think there's um an element where this is becoming much more widespread it's not just in the manufacturing sector there's a rise in those that have sustainability related skills across all businesses regardless of whether that's manufacturing or Services there's a desire for more people that have Environmental Protection related skills it is very focused um increase in demand for those that are working for example in solar energy so there's a combination of very widespread growth where the green economy and green skills are in high demand across almost all sectors I saw you we touched a little bit on AI of course that's such a prominent theme right now and something that many workers are thinking about and already using in their offices for example um generative AI is of course what we're seeing with chat gbt and those kind of models is it possible that in terms of its disruption that causes in the labor markets that it could be over hyped for example when it comes to Robotics and automation we still haven't seen the kind of replacement of factory workers that actually was once imagined and that many businesses believed would have already taken place or um that there was more um I guess inertia going towards a level of automation is it possible that with AI as well it's not quite going to reach the level that we're seeing yeah so we have been testing every couple of years that we launched this report we sort of try to get an assessment of where the human machine Frontier is and we try to do that across a set of tasks and it's very clear that when it comes to tasks that require manual dexterity or physical force in some form or the other they those tasks are no more automatable today than they were three years ago or or five years ago before that so those things are starting to even out but when it comes to tasks that require coordination reasoning communicating with others they are slightly more automatable today than they were a few years ago so it is very clear that as an aggregate businesses are starting to see how some of these new technologies could be used more but then when we look at the evidence across specific professions there's net job growth even with the disruptive potential of generative AI so I think you're right that their application in terms of net decline is likely to be limited to very few professions and in most cases we're talking about something that will enhance productivity and lead to people being able to do more value-added work do we expect that AI can also help bridge the skills Gap that we're seeing between the low skilled and high-skilled workers who already use artificial intelligence in in some form or the other um to be able to support online learning and training there's also been some very interesting studies in just the few months that chat GPD has existed um Eric Bernie Olson um in in in the U.S has done a study around call centers and what happens when lower skilled workers and call centers are using um uh support from chat GPT versus higher skilled workers and essentially what it does is it allows for a faster transferring of skills better responses from some of those that are working in that profession now that's one study one profession but I think there's an interesting use case there that helps show that in general artificial intelligence should be able to help upskill people a little faster so that then they can spend more of their time on critical and analytical thinking uh we talk of course about the labor market of the future and how some jobs could be displaced many more will come on as well um at the same time we're seeing right now especially amongst High income uh countries we're seeing that there's a need for talent that there's actually a deficit of talent um for many companies and according to your report that could actually put the brakes on a lot of growth is there a bright side to this um kind of tight labor market that we're seeing in many of these countries and that it could be more inclusive in terms of what working looks like uh in terms of tapping the labor market for groups they used to be forced out earlier so one of the one of the the clear messages that comes out from the report is that companies are starting to take diversity equity and inclusion very seriously um not only because of the social goods that it creates but also because they are looking for talent and so they're looking into pools that they maybe wouldn't have looked at as much as they're currently doing about 70 of them are planning to engage many more women as part of their di programs about 60 are looking at the youth about 50 are looking at people with disabilities and they're looking to bring much more of that talent in a second element is that companies are starting to look beyond the very traditional signals of who has a good skill set so instead of looking at previous employment and instead of looking at um their degree which may have been completed 10 years ago they're actually testing people for skills look using artificial intelligence in part to look at look for those skills and for keywords within their CVS once they're in to help reskill and up skill then rather than expecting to buy Talent directly from the market so I think there are some overall positive results because of the tighter labor markets because businesses are investing very differently in skills and skills first approaches and investing very differently in diversity equity and inclusion what could that tighter labor market and that attempt to invest more in diversity uh Equity inclusion what could it mean for um some of the developments we saw during the covet economy especially hybrid and remote working possibilities these are applications that offer many more workers the opportunity to um to come into the labor market for example but we've also seen that some businesses have tried to move away from them they say they want more employees back in the office what's the balance that we're seeing when it comes to hybrid and remote do we know that yet I think it's hard to make a prediction for the next four years because if we look back at the last three years so much has changed there but we have asked companies to tell us more about their particular policies most are planning to keep some version of hybrid work in place and I think that can indeed be very good news for more diverse workforces as long as the criteria for wages for promotions also remain equal and that there isn't an expectation that only those that are in person will then have access over time to higher wages and promotion opportunities so I think there's a balance to be struck while hybrid work can be good from the get-go for minorities for women for those that have care responsibilities on the other hand we have to make sure then that that doesn't lead to bias in the workplace afterwards all right we'll have to leave it there that is Sadia zahidi she is managing director of the world economic forum and a co-author of the newly released future of jobs report Saudia thanks so much for your time thank you

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Length: 17min 41sec (1061 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023