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Artificial intelligence will result in loss of 400,000 jobs in Spain over the next decade claim
Employment

Artificial intelligence will result in loss of 400,000 jobs in Spain over the next decade claim

Two million jobs will disappear due to AI, but some 1.6 million new occupations that do not currently exist will be created, according to researchers

Lucía Palacios

Madrid

Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 14:09

Artificial intelligence is bringing about an economic revolution but the progressive implementation of this technology in Spanish companies will lead to the net loss of around 400,000 jobs over the next ten years. This is the prediction of a report published on Monday 26 February by Randstad Research on the impact that AI will have on the Spanish labour market after carrying out an analysis based on extrapolations from international methodologies.

According to the report, almost 10% of jobs in Spain, equivalent to around two million, are at risk of being automated and will disappear due to the implementation of artificial intelligence. However, the expansion of this technology in business activity will also generate new opportunities over the next decade and create more than 1.6 million new jobs that do not exist today, according to calculations made by Randstad. The net effect on the labour market will, therefore, be the potential loss of some 400,000 jobs.

But the positive effect of AI is not only in terms of the new positions; it will also increase productivity in 3.24 million existing jobs, 15.9% of the total, which will in turn boost the Spanish economy. And, no significant adverse effects are expected for three quarters of workers, more than 15.1 million individuals.

Logically, the impact that AI penetration will have on different sectors will vary. Some professions will benefit from an increase in jobs, while others will see their share of the labour market decline with the advent of these technologies. Commerce and administrative activities will be the worst affected sectors, as they will experience a reduction in employment of 158,415 and 147,915 jobs respectively over the next decade, followed by hotels and catering and logistics, with losses of 112,770 and 47,440 jobs respectively.

In contrast, sectors or activities with a more positive impact on job creation include programming and consultancy; telecommunications; media and publishing; and professional, scientific and technical activities. Finally, there is a group of sectors that will generally experience a limited impact with the arrival of AI, such as agriculture, livestock and fishing; associative activities; extractive industries; and construction.

Higher productivity

The greatest increase in productivity with the consolidation of artificial intelligence will also be concentrated in these sectors: programming and consultancy, 40%; insurance, 37%; financial services, 36%; and media and publishing, 33%.

Valentín Bote, director of Randstad Research, said that globally 18% of work could be more or less affected by automation and global GDP could increase by 7% as a result of the boost to labour productivity.

Low implementation

At present, companies are still in the early stages of adopting artificial intelligence. In Spain, 54.5% of companies said that they still do not use it. The remaining 45.5% that do so use the technology mainly for data analysis (49.2%), optimisation of administrative tasks, or process automation (36.1%).

Furthermore, the degree of use differs greatly according to the size of the company: it is still very incipient in small companies, while its degree of use is much more widespread in large companies, which have a greater investment capacity and opportunities for using this type of technology.

"It already seems clear that AI will become a technological breakthrough and will eventually change the way work is done and the content of work as it is incorporated by companies," Bote added.

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