Stacy Pereira
A new joint study from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) found that one in four jobs globally can be exposed to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). The report titled “Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure” gives some respite, suggesting that the outcome is more likely transformation and not replacement.
According to Emirates News Agency (WAM), the report is the most detailed global assessment to date of how GenAI may reshape the world of work. The report’s key findings include a new “exposure gradients”, which cluster occupations according to their level of exposure to Generative AI. This could help policymakers distinguish between jobs at high risk of full automation and those more likely to evolve through task transformation.
The index has assessed nearly 30,000 occupational tasks with expert validation, AI-assisted scoring, and ILO harmonised micro data, to arrive at the outcome. ILO’s Senior Researcher Pawel Gmyrek, who is the lead author of the study, said, “We went beyond theory to build a tool grounded in real-world jobs. By combining human insight, expert review, and generative AI models, we’ve created a replicable method that helps countries assess risk and respond with precision.”
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The study found that 25% of global employment roles fall within occupations that are potentially exposed to AI. It noted that clerical jobs face the highest exposure of all, due to GenAI’s theoretical ability to automate many of their tasks. Higher-income countries could be impacted further up to 34%, the report showed. But it also mentions that most occupations will require human input to complete, and hence, transformation is the most likely impact of GenAI
Women stand a higher risk. In high-income countries, automation could risk 9.6% of female employment versus 3.5% of such jobs among men. The objective of the report was to call on governments, unions, employers to engage in social dialogue that can improve productivity and job qualities in these sectors.
