Women are three times more likely to lose jobs to AI – here are the roles facing the biggest threats

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Generative AI is three times more likely to impact the jobs of women in the workplace than men, according to new research.

A study from the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO), which created an index of occupational exposure of risk of replacement or transformation to jobs by AI, revealed the potential impact of the rise of the technology.

The research predicted that one-in-four jobs will be impacted by AI. However, it's more likely that jobs will be transformed in most cases rather than merely replaced, though that is a risk in some instances.

Women are more likely to feel the impact of AI in the workforce, highlighting concerns that AI will widen existing inequities.

"In high-income countries, jobs at the highest risk of automation make up 9.6% of female employment — a stark contrast to 3.5 per cent of such jobs among men," the report noted.

The study broke down jobs into different "exposure gradients", revealing the roles with the "highest" and "significant" potential risk of automation or transformation from generative AI.

Notably, female employment is more concentrated in the top two exposure gradients, with 5.7% of female roles rated to have significant exposure and another 4.7% rated to have the highest exposure.

"This tool helps countries across the world assess potential exposure and prepare their labor markets for a fairer digital future," said Janine Berg, Senior Economist at the ILO, in a statement.

The concerns about AI and the impact on women in the workforce isn't new. A quarter of workers surveyed last year said they feared AI would drive women out of the workplace.

Similarly, research from earlier this year revealed women were half as likely as their male counterparts to feel confident and prepared to adapt to AI, with Coursera research showing women made up less than a third of those taking AI skills training.

Full automation remains limited

While some jobs may be at risk of full automation, that remains limited, the ILO report noted, mainly because most tasks still require human involvement.

Jobs at high risk of full automation included data-entry clerks, typists, and statistical or finance clerks, as well as bookkeeping clerks and financial analysts. Software developers were also listed as having significant exposure to AI.

Meanwhile, jobs at a low risk of automation include cleaners, garbage collectors, creative performers, and dentists, among others.

"Clerical jobs face the highest exposure of all, due to GenAI’s theoretical ability to automate many of their tasks," the ILO said in a statement. "However, the expanding abilities of GenAI result in an increased exposure of some highly digitized cognitive jobs in media-, software- and finance-related occupations."

Because of that, the report noted around a quarter of global employment is exposed to generative AI, but that rises to 34% in high-income countries. However, that includes nearly all jobs with any potential risk from AI, including those found to have "low exposure".

For jobs in the top two exposure gradients, those facing the "highest" and "significant" impact, the report found 7.5% would be affected globally, versus 17.1% in higher income countries and 1.1% in lower income countries.

Broken down by geography, the areas facing the most change from AI, be it job replacement or transformation, were Europe and Asia followed by the Americas.

"This index helps identify where GenAI is likely to have the biggest impact, so countries can better prepare and protect workers," said Marek Troszyński, Senior Expert at Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) and one of co-authors of the paper.