EU: CEDEFOP AI skill survey finds higher risk in routine and precarious jobs with lower-skilled workers

AI skills survey

Cedefop, the EU Agency, has released initial findings from its AI skills survey, offering insights into AI's impact on European workers.

Conducted in spring 2024, the survey involved 5,342 employees from 11 EU countries, focusing on AI technology use, job automation, and employer support for AI adoption. Cedefop aims to analyze AI's impact on worker skills and the need for skilling, reskilling, and upskilling.

Some key insights were:

• Approximately one in seven workers in European workplaces use digital tools or applications that automate tasks using algorithms.
• 61% of European workers believe they will likely need new knowledge and skills in the next five years to cope with impact of AI tools on their job for the next 5 years.
• 80% of the adult workforce believe that AI can do less than a half of their job tasks.
• 44% believe it to be unlikely that their company or organisation will provide training to workers to deal with AI.
• For 55% of workers, they believed AI did not improve how to do their job.

How AI presented in the workplace

The algorithmic work powered by AI found to be used in survey included:

• Provision of directions or instructions on which tasks to do
• Monitoring or evaluating job performance
• Recognising patterns in data and making predictions to help work decisions
• Detecting faulty products or machines to predict repair needs
• Provide recommendations requiring specialised knowledge about the job
• Provide recommendations to clients or customers about products or services (e.g. chatbots)
• Recognise, translate, transcribe, or generating text
• Images, photos, or videos
• Answering questions

Higher risks of job automation for routine, precarious and low-skilled occupations

When examining the risk of job automation, the risk of job automation was found to be higher in routine and precarious jobs. This is more relevant in lower-skilled occupations in which workers use computerised machines to carry out their job tasks.

For further details, resources, and materials, visit Cedefop’s ‘Safe and healthy work in the digital age’ campaign and explore the new ‘Automation of tasks’ Priority Area.

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Sources

Higher job automation risk in routine and precarious work, CEDEFOP AI skill survey finds by OSHA EU, 28th June, 2024.

AI and the EU skilling challenge: First insights from Cedefop’s AI skills survey by Konstantinos Pouliakas (Cedefop) &Nicolas Becuwe (Verian), 16th Cedefop Brussels Seminar, 24 June 2024.

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