<\/p>\n
The finding comes from an International Monetary Fund working paper analysing more than 700 million online job advertisements across 110 economies between November 2021 and April 2026.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Researchers compared hiring trends in occupations with high exposure to AI against those less affected following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Job advertisements in highly exposed occupations declined by nearly 10% relative to less exposed roles. The reduction emerged in late 2023 and grew during 2024 before stabilising.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The pooled estimate across the period showed hiring in highly exposed occupations falling by about 6%.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, the decline did not deepen as AI systems became capable of completing more complex and time-consuming tasks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Researchers said the stabilisation could reflect companies redesigning jobs and production processes to incorporate AI rather than continuing to reduce recruitment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The working paper identified 51 emerging AI skills, including familiarity with ChatGPT and Copilot, prompt engineering, AI agents, vector databases and retrieval-augmented generation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Demand for those skills has grown rapidly since 2023 and is concentrated in occupations most exposed to AI.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Companies advertising positions requiring emerging AI skills recorded faster growth in overall job postings than businesses not seeking those capabilities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That pattern remained evident even in occupations considered highly exposed to automation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAI appears to be reshaping labour demand by both compressing hiring in more exposed occupations and generating new opportunities for workers with AI skills,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The negative effect was strongest in advanced economies, smaller in emerging markets and statistically insignificant in low-income economies and Africa.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The study found no clear difference between junior and senior hiring and no evidence that AI exposure had affected advertised wages.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Researchers cautioned that online job advertisements primarily reflected formal-sector demand and could understate changes occurring through informal employment, particularly in developing economies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The findings suggest that workers\u2019 prospects will increasingly depend on acquiring skills that complement AI as businesses adapt jobs and workflows.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–IMF\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":39089,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-48438","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Demand for workers in occupations most exposed to artificial intelligence has declined by nearly 10%, but companies adopting the technology are creating opportunities for people with AI skills.","published_date":"","news_description":"Demand for workers in occupations most exposed to artificial intelligence has declined by nearly 10%, but companies adopting the technology are creating opportunities for people with AI skills.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48440,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48438\/revisions\/48440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}