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AI Will Hit 40% of Jobs, IMF Warns. Young People Are First in Line
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The International Monetary Fund's managing director warned that artificial intelligence will eventually affect about 40% of jobs worldwide, with young workers entering the labor market first in line for displacement. Speaking in Bangkok at the opening of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings, Kristalina Georgieva described AI as a "slow-moving tsunami" sweeping through employment even as it props up the world economy. She said AI investment is holding global growth near 3% a year despite an ongoing energy shock.
The meetings in the Thai capital run through October 18 and gather finance officials and central bankers from around the world. Georgieva said the biggest winners are Asian economies that build the hardware behind AI, where adoption could add 0.5 to 1 percentage point a year to growth in advanced economies and 0.2 to 0.8 points in emerging ones. In a speech in Singapore the week before, she noted that AI hardware and related tech products now make up more than a tenth of world goods trade, adding that AI investment as a share of global GDP will likely surpass what went into building the railroads or the electricity grid.
The Fund's July outlook update found that the top four net exporters of AI hardware β Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia β beat first-quarter growth forecasts by an average of 4.4% on an annualized basis. South Korea grew at a 7.5% pace against the 1.8% the Fund had projected in April. Georgieva said the high end of the adoption range would more than offset the drag from aging populations across the region.
On jobs, Georgieva said the IMF expects AI to eventually touch about 40% of jobs globally, downgrading or eliminating many of them. Exposure runs around 60% in advanced economies and roughly 23% in low-income countries, though she said poorer nations score lower mainly because AI has not reached them yet. Young people are hit first because AI is absorbing the routine tasks that entry-level jobs are built on.
Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, speaking on the same panel, said demand for graduates' first jobs is already falling and warned that AI could widen the gap between rich and developing economies if governments do not act. World Bank President Ajay Banga said the bank is backing "small AI" tools that do not depend on large language models, aimed at farmers, clinics and classrooms in emerging markets.
Georgieva also flagged fiscal risks, arguing that AI could squeeze public finances by shifting income from workers to the owners of capital and eroding the tax base governments lean on most. She warned that the AI build-out itself is adding to inflation, and that disappointing earnings could spread through markets because major AI companies have borrowed heavily to fund it.
The IMF publishes its full World Economic Outlook at 9 a.m. Bangkok time on October 13, its first revision to the 3% global growth forecast since July. The Fund's July update projected 2026 growth of 3%, down from 3.5% in 2025, as the Middle East war drove energy prices up. Georgieva cautioned that the boom is bypassing most countries outside that supply chain, pointing to an uneven global recovery.
