AI Adoption Set to Shift Employment Landscape, Report Finds (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to expand across industries, a new report from the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) forecasts a mixed impact on employment.
While jobs in fields like humanities and social research, law, and office work are expected to increase, roles in construction, mining, agriculture, and production are likely to decline.
The report, titled “Employment Policy Directions in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, released on Tuesday, highlights the findings from the “AI Occupational Exposure Index” (AIOE), a measure that evaluates how AI can be applied across various professions.
The index integrates AI technology applications with the skills required to perform specific tasks, showing that jobs with higher AI exposure are more likely to experience employment growth.
The study revealed a clear correlation between a job’s AI exposure and its employment growth rate. Professions with high AI exposure, such as those in humanities and social sciences, senior government and corporate positions, management, legal and accounting professions, and academia, were associated with positive employment growth.
Conversely, jobs with lower AI exposure, such as those in farming, fisheries, construction, and production, were linked to negative growth.
While the report notes that some high-AI exposure jobs, like those in finance and insurance, are still experiencing job losses, it emphasizes that, on average, greater AI exposure correlates with higher employment rates.
The KIET report stresses the need for differentiated policy support based on job categories. For professions with high job displacement potential due to AI, such as manual labor and repetitive tasks, the report calls for expanded unemployment benefits, reskilling initiatives, and increased access to technical education for job transitions.
Additionally, the report advises companies to actively implement job redesign and employee retraining programs.
To prepare for increasing demand in AI-complementary fields, the report suggests expanding university-industry AI fusion programs, promoting AI talent visa schemes, and enhancing short-term talent acquisition initiatives like AI researcher exchange programs.
As AI technology evolves rapidly, the KIET urged that labor market statistics related to AI should be regularly updated to accurately assess the impact of AI on employment and to enable proactive and effective policy responses.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
