One in four jobs at high risk due to AI, finds OECD study — A look at changing skill needs

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said counties may be on the brink of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution with rapid progress, including with generative AI like ChatGPT, falling costs and the increasing availability of workers with AI skills. However, the organisation feels firms’ adoption of AI is still relatively low.

“When considering all automation technologies, including AI, 27 percent of jobs are in occupations at high risk of automation,” the OECD survey notes. It also highlights AI's impact in the manufacturing and finance sectors, in terms of opportunities and risks.

Jobs at the highest risk were defined as those using more than 25 of the 100 skills and abilities that AI experts consider can be easily automated.

There is little evidence the emergence of AI is having a significant impact on jobs so far, but that may be because the revolution is in its early stages, the Paris-based organisation said in its 2023 Employment Outlook.

The report, based on a survey last year, shows that three out of five workers fear that they could lose their job to AI over the next 10 years. The survey covered 5,300 workers in 2,000 firms spanning manufacturing and finance across seven OECD countries.

In fact, many workers support banning or restricting the use of AI in the firing, promotion and hiring of workers. As many as 57 percent of workers in both sectors supported a ban on AI that would decide which workers were dismissed, and a further quarter of workers thought that this use of AI should be allowed, but with restrictions.

According to the report, 49 percent of workers in finance and 39 percent in manufacturing said that their company’s application of AI collected data on them as individuals or how they do their work. Most of these workers expressed some related worries, such as feeling increased pressure to perform at work due to data collection (62 percent/56 percent in finance/manufacturing) and feeling that too much of their data was being collected (58 percent/54 percent).

An interesting point highlighted by the report is workers aged under 35 are more worried about data collection leading to decisions biased against them.

OECD report says cost is a bigger barrier to AI adoption than government regulation. The most commonly reported barrier to the adoption of AI, according to employers, was the cost of the technology. 53 percent employers in finance and 58 percent in manufacturing reported that high costs had been a barrier.

The next most commonly reported barrier was a lack of relevant skills (41 percent in finance and 43 percent in manufacturing), followed by not being convinced of the technology (29 percent in finance and 35 percent in manufacturing). Government regulation was the least common barrier, reported by 25 percent of employers in finance and 19 percent in manufacturing.