IMF HEAD WARNS AI PUTS 60 PER CENT OF RICH-WORLD JOBS AT RISK

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has warned that artificial intelligence is hitting global employment like "a slow-moving tsunami, but a tsunami nonetheless." Speaking at the IMF's annual meetings in Bangkok, she said AI could affect around 40 per cent of jobs worldwide, rising to roughly 60 per cent in advanced economies. She said young people face the greatest risk, as employers automate entry-level, routine work. Georgieva said the technology could eliminate some jobs, reduce the value of others and change the skills required across industries, with the shift already visible.

Georgieva said routine jobs have traditionally given young workers a route into professional careers, one she warned AI risks closing off. An IMF study of the US labour market found that 10 per cent of jobs now require higher-level AI skills, which tend to pay more. She said employment growth was concentrated instead in lower-paid sectors, including construction linked to data centres and general services. "That's not a story to celebrate," she said, "because it is positive on the side of lower-paying jobs."

Speaking on the same panel, Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who co-chairs the World Bank's Jobs Council, called for "crisis-era" employment support used in the Covid-19 pandemic to become a permanent policy tool, incentivising firms to hire graduates. The World Bank's Banga backed "small AI" tools and called for private capital to be unlocked to create jobs for 1.2 billion young people. The warning carries particular relevance for Britain: an OECD report published in July found nearly four in five jobs in London highly exposed to generative AI. The UK government is reported to be preparing contingency plans for potential disruption to employment.