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AI Hitting Job Markets Like a ‘Tsunami’, Says IMF Chief

“We have very little time to get people ready for it, businesses ready for it,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said


Artificial intelligence, facial recognition stock image
Artificial intelligence is likely to hit 40% of jobs in emerging economies. Image: Canva

 

The International Monetary Fund chief voiced concerns this week about the impact of artificial intelligence on job markets, adding that the world has had little time to “prepare” for the technology.

AI is hitting global labour forces “like a tsunami,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told an event in Zurich on Monday.

“We have very little time to get people ready for it, businesses ready for it,” she added.

 

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Speaking at the Swiss Institute of International Studies, Georgieva noted that artificial intelligence was likely to impact 60% of jobs in advanced economies and 40% of jobs around the world in the next two years.

For several businesses, however, that impact has already started to manifest.

Employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. noted in a February report that AI-related job cuts were on the rise in the US since May 2023. That was because firms were either moving towards developing the tech or depending upon it to replace certain duties and roles.

Rapid advancement of AI was currently affecting jobs in media and technology, but its effect was “beginning to be felt” across other sectors, the report added.

In March, US tech giant IBM reportedly began laying off employees in non-customer-facing roles, aiming to replace them with AI.

The company’s chief had said last year that the company was planning to slow or suspend hiring in 26,000 roles which could be carried out by AI and automation, CRN magazine reported. That number accounted for about 10% of the firm’s workforce.

Meanwhile, about 40% and 26% of jobs in emerging markets and low-income countries, respectively, are at risk from AI, the IMF has previously noted.

According to accounting firm PwC, AI and related technologies could displace around 26% of existing jobs in China.

Georgieva has previously called on policymakers to manage this “troubling trend” and prevent the technology from “stoking social tensions”.

On Monday, she reiterated that call. AI “could bring a tremendous increase in productivity if we manage it well, but it can also lead to more misinformation and, of course, more inequality in our society.”

 

 

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  • Reuters, with additional inputs from Vishakha Saxena

 

Also read:

AI Will Worsen Global Inequality, Replace Jobs, Says IMF – BBC

Google, Microsoft, Intel to Study AI-Related Job Losses – WaPo

AI Could Pass Human Tests This Decade, Says Nvidia Chief

Warren Buffett Likens AI to the Atomic Bomb — Quartz

Big Tech Exaggerating AI’s Threat to Humanity, Expert Says

 

Vishakha Saxena

Vishakha Saxena is the Multimedia and Social Media Editor at Asia Financial. She has worked as a digital journalist since 2013, and is an experienced writer and multimedia producer. As a trader and investor, she is keenly interested in new economy, emerging markets and the intersections of finance and society. You can write to her at [email protected]