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Understanding the Influence of AI on Employment

The rapid growth in awareness and adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5 in November 2022 ushered in a new wave of excitement and concern about the disruption these new tools could bring. Understanding and preparing for these impacts require knowing which tasks, jobs, and industries will be replaced or augmented by AI and other automation technologies.

To that end, we have developed a new framework to estimate the exposure of different job tasks to new technologies, the potential productivity gains of performing tasks with automation technologies, and the likely adoption rates of these technologies.

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Key insights

Over half of tasks performed (53 per cent) across all occupations in Canada could be performed by current artificial intelligence technologies.

Occupations in natural and applied sciences are the most exposed to AI (82 per cent), while those in sales and people-facing services are the least exposed (37 per cent).

Applying these estimates to a labour market scenario in our Model of Occupations, Skills, and Technology (MOST) suggests a 2 per cent increase in employment above our baseline forecast in 2045, translating to a gain of about 555,000 jobs, thanks to the long-term economic gains created by increased productivity.

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