Little demand in Greece for workers possessing AI skills
The supply of new skills in Greece directly related to artificial intelligence clearly exceeds market demand for such qualifications. In other words, the slow integration of AI in Greece is reflected in the fact that the human resources with the corresponding skills are not being absorbed.
Greece is fifth from the bottom in the relevant ranking of the International Monetary Fund, being a country with abundant talent but very moderate demand for these specific skills.
Consequently, examining the finding on the basis of brain drain, it should not be surprising if in the coming years there is a talent flow recorded from Greece, for example, to Sweden, where companies are hungry for skills that concern the core of AI and cannot find people to offer them.
Meanwhile, the IMF highlights that the most substantial wage increases are now being recorded in jobs directly related to AI and its application in a number of sectors of economic activity: “Employers are paying more for workers who acquire these emerging skills.” Hence, it points out that the challenge for countries like Greece is to stimulate innovation and push companies to absorb the available talent: “Reforms that promote innovation and new business creation, and improve firms’ access to finance, would be particularly helpful.”
For workers, finding or even keeping a job will increasingly depend on the ability to update their skills or learn new ones. The IMF’s latest analysis of millions of online job vacancies demonstrates the scale of the demand for new skills: One in 10 job ads in advanced economies already requires at least one new skill.
Technical and managerial roles in AI are seeing the greatest demand for new skills. IT now accounts for more than half of this demand. Sector-specific skills are also popular, such as healthcare, which is seeing a rise in telecare and digital health skills. Marketing is also increasingly demanding social media expertise.
Almost 40% of global jobs are estimated to be at risk of being disrupted by AI. This is raising concerns about the potential for job losses for large groups of people. That highlights the need for proactive policies that prepare the workforce to respond to the new job landscape.
In the US, it was recorded that over the past decade, regions with higher adoption of new skills saw employment grow by 1.3% for every percentage point increase in the share of job postings with new skills. Notably, high- and low-skilled workers tend to benefit the most as the economy transitions to the AI era. In contrast, medium-skilled roles, such as clerical work, are particularly squeezed.
Against this backdrop, governments are being called upon to redesign their education systems. In particular, it is believed that today’s students need cognitive, creative and technical skills that will complement artificial intelligence and help them use it in the economy of tomorrow.
It is essential to note that governments should help workers at risk of displacement from their jobs so that they can gain access to retraining that will keep pace with changes in the labor market.