IMF analysis finds almost 40% of global employment exposed to AI

Background

When generative AI tools began spreading rapidly through workplaces, economists started asking not only what the technology could do but who would be affected by it. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) took up that question with a staff analysis that tried to measure exposure to AI across the world economy rather than in a single country.

What the analysis found

The IMF staff analysis, published on January 14, 2024, found that almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI ^[1]. Exposure is not the same as job loss. The analysis distinguished between jobs where AI might raise productivity and jobs where demand for labour might fall, and the balance between the two differs from country to country.

In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs may be affected by AI, with roughly half potentially benefiting from AI integration and the other half facing lower labour demand ^[1]. The picture changes sharply with income level. The IMF projected that AI would affect 40 percent of jobs in emerging markets and 26 percent in low-income countries ^[1].

The analysis also considered how the effects might fall on different kinds of workers. It noted that AI can help less experienced workers raise productivity faster, and that younger workers may be better positioned to exploit the opportunities ^[1].

The inequality warning

IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva drew out the distributional consequence of these figures. She said that in most scenarios AI will likely worsen overall inequality, and that policymakers should address the troubling trend ^[2].

Her proposed response had two parts. She called for comprehensive social safety nets and retraining programmes for vulnerable workers, to make the AI transition more inclusive ^[2]. Behind both is the idea that the labour-market effects of AI are not fixed in advance but depend on how policy is designed.

A tool for assessing readiness

To compare countries with one another, the IMF developed an AI Preparedness Index covering digital infrastructure, human capital and labour-market policies, innovation and economic integration, and regulation and ethics, and used it to assess 125 countries ^[1]. By grouping the ingredients of readiness into four areas, the index makes a country's position reflect not only its technology sector but also the skills of its workforce, the strength of its social policies and the quality of its regulation.

Why it mattered

The analysis put a number on a debate that had largely been conducted through anecdotes about particular occupations. By placing advanced, emerging and low-income economies in the same framework, it framed AI as a global development question as much as a labour-market question for rich countries. The economies with the least measured exposure are often also those with the fewest resources to capture the gains, and the index gives a rough sense of that gap.

Pairing an exposure estimate with a readiness index gave policymakers a way to talk about two things at once: the scale of the change and the capacity to manage it. The report's central point is that the outcome is a choice. Whether exposure turns into broad productivity gains or into wider inequality depends on social protection, retraining and regulation — the same areas the index tries to score.