The workers most vulnerable to the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) are "back-office" support staff, a group with a high proportion of women, according to an analysis. The prediction runs counter to the common assumption that technology industry workers such as programmers will be replaced most.
According to The New York Times (NYT) on Tuesday, economists are concerned that relatively overlooked clerical workers — including customer service staff and accounting, payroll, and human resources personnel — will be left in a vulnerable position because of AI.
These workers hold tens of millions of jobs across all industries throughout the United States and are distributed regardless of education level or company size. Some hold college degrees while many do not, and they live widely across large and small companies and in both major cities and rural areas.
The biggest common thread linking them is the disproportionately high share of women. Back-office jobs have traditionally served as a pathway for women to enter the middle class. This is similar to the role manufacturing jobs once played for men. Manufacturing also declined sharply in the wake of earlier globalization and technological advancement. Molly Kinder, a former researcher at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said, "I worry that AI could have the same impact on women with a high school education that the decline of manufacturing had on men with a high school education."
The NYT noted that recent discussions of job losses have focused on IT positions because those workers are the first to use AI in their work. However, as AI — with its strong advantages in cost reduction — spreads across the broader economy, the blow to back-office work is bound to be significant. Choi Jung-ho, an accounting professor at Stanford University, explained, "Because the back office is not a company's core profit-generating division, companies are likely to perceive it as a cost center (a department that incurs costs but does not generate revenue)." Medical records managers, payroll clerks, billing staff, and customer service workers represent typical back-office jobs.
There is also the problem that recovery is not easy even if jobs are lost. According to an assessment of post-job-loss adaptability by occupation recently conducted by researchers at GovAI, a nonprofit AI policy research organization, the groups currently most exposed to AI had favorable conditions for re-employment. By contrast, back-office workers were classified as a group with both high risk of AI replacement and low adaptability.
While these concerns have not yet materialized, voices are growing that policymakers must play a role, given the rapid pace of AI adoption and technological advancement. Mark Muro, an economist at the Brookings Institution, said, "Back-office workers are core occupations that support households and families," adding, "We need to watch what changes are taking place across the labor market and in various occupations."
