Results
- Analysis found that 30–40% of jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean are exposed in some way to generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), with exposure highly linked to a country’s economic status. Exposed jobs are more likely to be urban, formal, and higher-paying, and to require higher education.
- Between 8 and 12% of jobs in the region could see a boost in productivity by harnessing Gen AI – but up to half, some 17 million jobs, won’t be able to leverage the potential benefits because of a lack of digital infrastructure.
- Gen AI puts 2–5% of jobs in the region at risk of automation, disproportionately impacting younger, educated, urban workers, and especially women. On average, women workers are twice as likely to be at risk of automation from Gen AI.
- Between 13% and 22% of workers are exposed to Gen AI in contexts that could lead either to automation or augmentation, depending on the evolution of this technology, workers’ characteristics, and complementary policies.
The Challenge
Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) is set to potentially transform the labor market, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Studies about its possible impacts have generally focused on high-income countries. But AI might be a crucial path to greater productivity in emerging markets – or, like other recent waves of technological change, it might widen the gap between low- and high-income workers. These effects are of particular concern to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), one of the world’s most unequal regions, and one that has struggled with a persistent productivity gap, in large part because of barriers to innovation and technology adoption. To effectively minimize the risks and leverage the benefits of Gen AI, LAC countries would need to understand their economy’s occupational exposure to the technology – yet that type of assessment had never before been undertaken in the region.
WBG Approach
In partnership with the International Labor Organization, the World Bank produced the first analysis of the Latin American labor market’s exposure to Gen AI and what it means for the hundreds of millions of workers across the region. The policy paper leveraged a rich set of harmonized household and labor force surveys, breaking down – by country, by demographic, and by sector – the jobs at risk of automation, those where AI could boost productivity, and those that might fall in between. One major consideration for this kind of analysis is that developing economies tend to adopt technology more slowly, a variable that the report conscientiously accounted for. Critically, all the data on the country level has been made publicly available online. This data is foundational to country-specific insights, informing policy responses that can leverage AI to benefit workers, grow economies, and increase prosperity for all.