On October 12, said was hitting the global labor market like a "slow-moving tsunami," with young graduates first in line to be knocked down.
The estimates about 40% of jobs worldwide will eventually be .
Exposure runs about 60% in advanced economies and 23% in low-income countries — but the low figure is not protection. Poorer nations are less exposed , meaning they will be hit later, with fewer resources to cushion it.
, who co-chairs the 's , called for governments to make a permanent tool for getting young people into work.
What governments did during Covid-19 and the global financial crisis, he said, now has to be treated as part of the structural policy menu rather than an emergency measure.
Tharman pointed to the , where and the for a college degree is shrinking.
, the World Bank's president, estimates 1.2 billion young people will turn 18 over the next 15 years, and the private sector — which already generates 75% to 85% of jobs in any country — will have to absorb most of them.
Banga is less pessimistic about the disruption. He said large language models will cause some job disruption in the developed world, but that in middle- and lower-middle-income countries the opportunity from to build jobs and productivity is enormous.
AI has also been the major driver propping up growth this year. AI-related investment and trade have lifted output in a handful of economies, helping keep global expansion near 3% despite an energy supply shock. Georgieva estimated AI adoption could lift growth by 0.5 to 1 percentage point in advanced Asia and 0.2 to 0.8 percentage point in emerging Asia — at the high end, more than offsetting the loss from aging populations.
Tharman warned that growth alone may not deliver jobs. , and developing Southeast Asia are growing quite well, he said, but job creation is weak — and AI will widen that gap if governments are too passive.
Displacement will come "task by task," Tharman said, and that gives policymakers time — provided workers can learn on the job and universities shift toward applied training.
The time is the whole point. If training does not keep pace with the tasks AI takes over, the window closes and a cohort of graduates loses more than a year of skills.