IMF Says AI Will Hit 40% of Jobs Worldwide, With 60% Exposure in Advanced Economies
CurieuxExplorer · x · 2026-10-12
The IMF estimates AI will displace or significantly transform roughly 40% of jobs globally, a figure now circulating widely as the automation debate gains a concrete scale.
The accompanying IMF chart breaks employment into high-exposure/high-complementarity, high-exposure/low-complementarity, and low-exposure shares:
- Advanced economies: 60% of jobs highly exposed to AI, 25% in the high-complementarity bucket
- Emerging markets: 33% highly exposed
- Low-income countries: only 23%, the least exposed
The poster adds that knowledge work — customer support, analysis, coding, routine professional tasks — faces a nearer timeline, while physical and highly interpersonal roles will be affected more slowly but still materially. Source: ILO and IMF staff calculations.
Related event: IMF: AI to Affect 40% of Jobs Globally, 60% in Advanced Economies(2 posts)→
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