A new study suggests that 3.3 million Belgian jobs could be affected by artificial intelligence (AI), however, this does not necessarily mean that all affected jobs will result in unemployment.
The study was published by ING Economist Charlotte de Montpellier who drew on categories formulated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It splits jobs into three types: those that could benefit from AI, those that will not be impacted at all and those that will become obsolete.
Based on these classifications, the economist calculated that 1.7 million jobs are at risk of being taken over by AI, most of which are administrative positions. A further 1.7 million may be fundamentally changed by AI.
Risk of rising unemployment?
In her study, de Montpellier stressed that this does not necessarily mean that all affected jobs will result in unemployment.
"Previous waves of automation have always been a source of concern," she told Le Soir. "In 2013, it was predicted that 47% of jobs would be automated. Ten years on, we can see that there are actually more jobs than previously."
Additionally, this transformation will be gradual and new jobs will emerge in tandem with old ones disappearing. For example, previous fluctuations in the job market made administrative work more scarce and intellectual work more widespread, the economist explains. Previous negative predictions failed to take this detail into account.
In addition, ageing populations across Europe mean that a decline in available jobs does not make higher unemployment inevitable.
"The supply of workers in Belgium will decline over the next few years, so we don't think that the development of AI will lead to a rise in unemployment," she said.
