Why women could be hurt more by AI in the workforce than men: study

When artificial intelligence begins automating jobs once done by humans, women will have to worry more than men, according to a new study by McKinsey & Co.

The report, which was compiled by the consulting firm’s research arm, McKinsey Global Institute, analyzed US labor-market trends through 2030, and found that women are 1.5 times more likely to need to change jobs in the next seven years.

McKinsey attributed the figure to the high amount of women in industries with lower-wage jobs, which will be most affected by AI technology already present in models that are available for public use like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard AI and DALL-E, which generates images.

“Women are heavily represented in office support and customer service, which could shrink by about 3.7 million and 2.0 million jobs, respectively, by 2030,” the report states.

Blacks and Hispanics will also be adversely affected as these workers are “highly concentrated in some shrinking occupations within customer service, food services and production work.”

In all, at least 12 million workers in US could be displaced by technology and switching jobs come 2030, McKinsey said.

The analysis also showed that among low-wage industries, 1.1 million jobs could be entirely swiped from the workforce.

Workers across these in-jeopardy jobs are up to 14 times more likely to need to change occupations than their higher-paid counterparts employed in the transportation, construction and healthcare industries.

For employees want to find a new job with a better salary, “most will need additional skills to do so successfully,” the report noted.

However, not all white-collar positions will be unscathed by the incoming wave of AI in the workforce.

Lawyers are among the high-paid workers who will see “the biggest impact of generative AI” since models “can search through case law, … freeing lawyers to think through how to apply them in new legal arguments.”

AI-backed tools like the ones developed by Sam Altman’s artificial intelligence company OpenAI will also be able to use the tech to edit documents, the form noted, which is usually what lawyers “spend a great deal of time” doing.

Civil engineers’ jobs may also be on the chopping block, as generative AI will “accelerate the design process, taking all building codes into account for fewer errors and less rework.”

McKinsey notes that a streamlined process in planning, designing and executing infrastructure — tasks civil engineers are trained to do — “is vital at a time when the nation needs to deliver more affordable housing and major infrastructure projects.”

However, “physical work is not going away,” the report added, noting that better-paying jobs could grow immensely, by as much as 3.8 million jobs.

Overall, it “probably won’t be that kind of catastrophic thing,” McKinsey Global Institute partner Michael Chui told Bloomberg of the impending wave of AI-powered automation in the workforce.

But, it’s still “going to change almost every job,” he added.

If handled correctly, McKinsey said that the US workforce could see a significant increase in productivity and property.

The study reports that in the best-case scenario, productivity could increase from 1%, where it is now, to up to 4%.

It also attributed the shift to net-zero emissions to a decline in the workforce, as it’s already begun shifting employment away from oil, gas and automotive manufacturing.

Some 3.5 million positions could be wiped out by the transition to greener emissions by 2030.

Those jobs will be replaced by positions in green industries, which will see “a modest gain in employment” to the tune of 700,000 additional jobs, according to the report.

“We also see increased demand for healthcare workers as the population ages, plus gains in transportation services due to e-commerce,” McKinsey said.