Study warns mid-skilled young workers, women in Malaysia most at risk from AI

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KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 — Younger prime-age workers (between 25 and 34-years-old) and women in Malaysia — especially mid-skilled knowledge workers — are more likely to be replaced by generative artificial intelligence (AI), a policy brief revealed recently. 

They form the bulk of the 4.2 million workers — or 28 per cent of Malaysia’s workforce — that are “highly exposed” to generative AI technologies, the report said.

With another 2.5 million workers falling in the medium-high exposure category, the report said generative AI can currently replace 40 per cent of tasks performed by almost half of the country’s workforce. 

The policy brief, titled ‘Novel AI technologies and the future of work in Malaysia’, was jointly authored by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia and the World Bank.

While younger prime-age workers are at the highest risk of substitution by AI, the youngest workers (between 15 and 24-years-old) are interestingly less likely to find themselves in the same boat. 

The difference is because of their job choices. The youngest workers often settle for manual roles that require little or no experience. 

But, the younger prime-age workers are usually employed in jobs that largely involve doing predictable and structured cognitive tasks — like data entry, basic document review, and compiling information — which generative AI could easily perform. 

Women, meanwhile, are almost twice as likely to be in jobs that are highly exposed to automation by generative AI, such as service and retail jobs, than men. 

If the current trend holds, the report raised concerns that younger workers could get trapped in low-skilled roles.

Risk rises with education

The report noted that the adoption of generative AI has been about five times faster than that of mobile phones — and has outpaced that of personal computers and even the Internet. 

And, the exposure to generative AI rises in tandem with a worker’s skill, education, and income levels — but peaks in the middle of the distribution and tapers off at the highest levels. 

To illustrate: Workers with post-secondary (college) education are at 46 per cent risk, compared to those without a certificate (eight per cent). 

The risk also reduces to 37 per cent for those with a university degree — because they could more likely leverage their expertise to be augmented by AI, instead of being replaced. 

The report also notes a similar risk pattern based on income levels. 

“It is jobs in the middle — the kind that sustains large sections of Malaysia’s middle class — that are the most vulnerable to generative AI displacement,” ISIS Malaysia’s Economics, Trade and Regional Integration director Calvin Cheng told Malay Mail.

“Meanwhile, jobs at the lower end of the income distribution (primarily physical-manual roles) and at the highest end (primarily senior management roles, and those requiring specialist high-order cognitive skills) remain relatively insulated.

“In fact, the higher-end may see productivity improvement from augmentation,” Cheng, who co-authored the policy brief, explained.

Who’s at the highest risk? The top 10 industries with the highest AI exposure

Insurance/takaful — 91.8 per centReal estate activities — 87.4 per centFinancial services activities (except insurance/takaful) — 87.1 per centActivities auxiliary to financial service and insurance/takaful activities — 84.8 per centEmployment activities — 78.6 per centGambling and betting activities — 76.5 per centLegal and accounting activities — 75.6 per centPublishing activities — 73.9 per centAdvertising and marketing research — 72.1 per centOffice administrative, office support activities — 69.6 per cent

What jobs would be in demand then?

Cheng said jobs anchored in “human-edge” skills are harder to automate because they are unstructured and require trust and nuance.

These jobs include caregiving, performing surgery, as well as those in top management — since their human-to-human interactions and complex problem-solving skills are still difficult to automate — at least for now. 

“It is these areas which will command a premium in the labour market of the future,” Cheng added. 

But ultimately, as generative AI catches up with human abilities, the report notes that the “capacity to learn” is the most important edge that we have to keep pace with it.