Latest news with #womenInWork
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Generative AI Is Already Coming For Women's Office Jobs
John Mcaslan And Partners London Office, 79 William Road, London, Nw1, United Kingdom, Architect: ... More John Mcaslan And Partners, 2009, London Office, John Mcaslan And Partners, London, Uk, 2009, Interior Shot Of People Working At Desks In The Open Plan Office (Photo by View Pictures/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) As the economy holds its breath to see what the impact of new economic policies in the current administration, some sectors of the labor market are already facing changes from rapidly increasing technological integration. The advent of ChatGPT and other generative AI has the potential to shift not what jobs grow and shrink, but also how tasks are done within jobs. As consumers, many have experienced the frustrating chat bots instead of customer service, and as teachers, parents, or students, we've seen how these tools can help or harm education. And as workers, we are forced to face how generative AI can adopt different functions of our jobs for better or worse. Aneesh Raman of LinkedIn recently wrote in The New York Times that the adoption of AI is already having impacts on the early career trajectories of young workers entering the labor market after college. Another group of workers appears to already being hit by the adoption of new technologies: women office workers. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statisticsreleased last week are shedding light on those early changes and how segregation in the labor market will shape winners and losers. For over one year, there have been striking changes to the Professional and Business Services industry, which includes legal services, accounting, office administration, clerical work, and lots of other jobs that support the operations of companies. Every single month, women's employment has declined in this supersector, while men's employment has fluctuated month-to-month but grown year-over-year. Since April 2024, women have lost a total of 165,000 jobs in this sector while men have gained 134,000 jobs. Change in payroll numbers by industry by gender, April 2024 to April 2025. Some of this stark disparity is explained by which jobs are more likely to be done by women and which are more likely to be done by men even within the same industries. For example, design services, like graphic designers, decreased by 1.2% in April, and women are a slight majority at 59%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting a shrinking of all office and administrative support positions over the next decade. Seventy percent of these jobs are done by women. As women's jobs are displaced, there could be long-term risks to their careers since women are less likely to be reemployed when displaced compared to men. But this is not all a foregone conclusion for women looking into the future of work, or even in the nearer-future of a downturn. Generative AI also has the potential to improve jobs where women have also dominated and where supportive tools provided by these technologies can improve the services provided. For example, in education, teachers can get support with generating lesson plans and exams, giving them time to focus on direct instruction with students. In healthcare, artificial intelligence tools can streamline the management of care that is provided by teams. As my colleague Afet Dundar at the Institute for Women's Policy Research has noted in our In The Lead blog, the potential of generative AI relies on giving people the skills to work productively with AI rather than being replaced by it. And focusing on the industries that can be improved by technological integration, like education and healthcare, gives women opportunities to balance recent losses in other sectors. Women have gained 645,000 jobs in the Education and Health Services industry over the same period. Following the job statistics published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics each month can guide policymakers as well as industry leaders to make sure these employment shifts can benefit us all through better, upskilled jobs providing better services across society.
Bloomberg
22-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
New Zealand Budget 2025: Winners and Losers
New Zealand Finance Minister Nicola Willis had billed Thursday's budget as a sober affair that would contain 'no unicorns, no rainbows.' Women working in female-dominated fields were arguably the biggest losers, with the government estimating contingency savings of NZ$12.8 billion ($7.6 billion) over four years by making it harder for them to lodge pay equity claims.
Fast Company
20-05-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
AI advances may threaten women's jobs more than men's
Women may be at a heightened risk for being edged out of their job (or having their duties change) due to AI. According to a new study, jobs disproportionately done by women, especially in higher income countries, are more steadily becoming automated. The joint study, which comes from the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO) and Poland's National Research Institute (NASK), was released today. It assessed the ways in which generative AI is reshaping the world, as well as how it changes the role of human beings. 'We went beyond theory to build a tool grounded in real-world jobs. By combining human insight, expert review, and generative AI models, we've created a replicable method that helps countries assess risk and respond with precision,' said Pawel Gmyrek, ILO senior researcher and lead author, in a statement included in the study. How AI is changing jobs The report found that globally about one in four people have a job with generative AI exposure, meaning their jobs had the potential to be performed by AI. Researchers also found a significant contrast between how at-risk women's jobs were versus men's. They found that the jobs that had the greatest risk of being performed by AI made up 9.6% of female employment compared to just 3.5% of jobs typically held by men. Administrative tasks, most commonly performed in clerical jobs, were at the greatest risk, but jobs in media, software, and finance were also at notable risk, as well. The researchers noted that rather than AI taking over employees' jobs completely, human roles will, more commonly, evolve with the technology. 'We stress that such exposure does not imply the immediate automation of an entire occupation, but rather the potential for a large share of its current tasks to be performed using this technology,' the report explained. Shaping the future of work The study's authors also noted that governments, social dialogue, and worker organizations will be important in determining AI's growing impact on the workforce in the future. 'This index helps identify where GenAI is likely to have the biggest impact, so countries can better prepare and protect workers,' said Marek Troszyński, one of the researchers and a senior expert at NASK.
RNZ News
08-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Support care worker on pay equity claim law change
law politics about 1 hour ago The government on Wednesday rushed through controversial law changes that raised the threshold for proving work, that's mainly been done by women has been historically undervalued when compared to male dominated jobs, that require similar skills. It means that more than 30 claims that were part way through the process must start over. Jo-Chanelle Pouwhare spoke to Lisa Owen.
