ILO Predicts AI Would Take Over 25% of Global Jobs, Women at Higher Risk

• More jobs from the industrial age are now under threat due to the advancement in generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI)
• The International Labour Organisation stated this in its study conducted to assess the impact of generative AI on job roles across different countries
• The report showed the jobs that are most vulnerable to being taken over by generative AI, and recommended action points for the governments of the countries

Legit.ng journalist Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly advances worldwide, a new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) warns that up to 25% of jobs globally face potential disruption.

The report, titled “Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure”, and released on May 20, 2025, estimated how generative AI technologies could impact the labour market across countries.

The report puts the global average of jobs at risk at 25%, but notes that high-income countries have a higher risk of about 34% of jobs, as they have a higher digital integration compared to others.

Platforms like Google have incorporated more AI features to make search results more relevant with human context.

ILO: Women's job roles at higher risk

The ILO report also estimates that women face a higher risk of losing their jobs to Generative AI, and in high-income countries, 9.6% of female workers could lose their jobs, as opposed to male workers, where they project 3.5% of jobs to be lost to AI.

The report also identifies some of the most vulnerable jobs to include clerical roles, jobs in software development, finance and media.

However, full automation remains limited, as many roles still require human judgment and collaboration to be effective.

ILO report provides insights into jobs to be lost to AI

Providing insights into the study, Lead author Pawel Gmyrek, ILO Senior Researcher, said that they combined expert reviews, human insights and generative AI models to come up with a replicable method for countries to evaluate their risk and plan a response strategy.

Gmyrek described the end product as a tool grounded in real-world jobs, with an “occupational exposure index” that details the impact of generative AI on different job roles across different countries.

Senior Economist Janine Berg added that it is a tool that the governments of different countries could use to prepare their labour market for the digital future, the SUN News reports.

Berg explained that the exposure need not translate to job losses if the governments deploy the appropriate policies, digital infrastructure and inclusive workforce skills to moderate the disruptions.

For instance, in Nigeria, tech giant Microsoft has shared plans to invest $1 million (about N1.6 billion) to train one million Nigerians in artificial intelligence (AI).

Generative AI competes for market dominance

Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models have been vying to take the lead, with the US and China striving to produce the best AI assistant.

Legit.ng reported that Chat-GPT became the first to make generative AI freely available to people as a dedicated application, even though several existed before then.

These Gen AI are popular for their abilities to generate creative works like images, videos and written works, skills previously reserved for humans.

Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.

Source: Legit.ng