Most workers at risk from AI can transition, report finds
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By
Chris Teale
Recent research from the Brookings Institution warned that while most workers exposed to AI can pivot, millions in administrative and clerical roles may struggle.
Most American workers in jobs that are at risk from artificial intelligence have the capacity to manage job transitions, although policymakers can help make the transition easier, according to new research released last week.
A report from the Brookings Institution found that of the 37.1 million workers who are highly exposed to AI and so risk job loss, around 70% — 26.5 million — of those are in occupations with a high capacity to manage a transition elsewhere. However, the report found that 6.1 million workers, primarily in clerical and administrative roles, are both highly exposed to AI and might struggle to adapt. Brookings measured an employee’s capacity to adapt based on their savings, age, a lack of local opportunities and their skills.
Workers who are highly exposed to AI and have a low capacity to adapt are found primarily in college towns and state capitals, researchers found, especially in the Midwest and Mountain West.
The report comes as governments of all sizes wrestle with the impacts of AI on their workforce. While state leaders have talked up the technology’s ability to augment how work gets done in the public sector, the likelihood of jobs changing and being made obsolete remains to be seen, including in the private sector. Researchers believe that disruption is coming, and while some employees may be less able to adapt to the new reality, it will take time to work out its extent.
“We know from history that the adoption of these technologies and full integration of what they can do takes a while, on the order of multiple decades, to realize their full productivity advantages,” said Sam Manning, a senior research fellow at the nonprofit Centre for the Governance of AI, known as GovAI, and a report co-author. “There's lots of reasons for that. There's sluggishness in terms of institutional change and people being able to adapt their workflows and try and experiment with new technologies, learn when they're reliable; when they're not.”
Workers well positioned to adapt to AI despite their exposure to the technology include software developers, financial managers, lawyers, and other professions that have strong pay, financial buffers, diverse skills and a deep professional network, Brookings found. The report noted that professions like these are “highly threatened by AI automation,” but “likely possess relatively strong means to adjust to AI-driven dislocation if it were to occur.”
Clerical and administrative workers are exposed and might struggle to adapt, the report says, given that many of those professionals have limited savings, few transferrable skills and narrower prospects for reemployment elsewhere.
It means any transitions into new roles won’t be easy, and Brookings called on governments at all levels to do more to help. Manning said that could include making unemployment insurance more generous and longer lasting, as well as implementing labor market policies that, for example, match a UI recipient with a career coach who can help them work out what they need to transition to new employment.
“English language skills could be a thing that is really valuable for one worker, whereas for another worker, they actually need to move physically to a new labor market,” Manning said. “Or they need to learn how to use AI much more in their workflow, to be competitive and productive in their occupation. This diversity of needs is a challenge, but is maybe something to try to embrace with investment in different active labor market policies.”
Some communities must be more wary of the impact of AI on their workforce than others, the report warned. That includes college towns and state capitals, as well as small metropolitan areas, a trend researchers said is “reflecting such areas’ elevated presence of administrative and clerical workers.” And while people who live in large cities may also be exposed to AI, the effects will be more keenly felt in those smaller towns and cities given the administrative and clerical work residents do there.
“If you think about it, that's a lot of what a college is or a university is, or a state government is,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro and a co-author of the report. “Those communities may be places that need to be alert to these dynamics, though the work shows that clearly the largest numbers of these vulnerable workers are in big metropolitan areas. But there is this other dimension too.”