Survey on AI introduction at work shows more negative impact on workers in vulnerable situation

A delivery worker is writing something on the paper. Reporter Han Soo-bin

When artificial intelligence (AI) was introduced in workplaces and tasks, the positive impact was found to be greater for regular workers and high-income groups, and the negative impact was greater for non-regular workers, low-income groups, or platform and freelance workers. Concerns about the “likelihood of losing one's job due to AI in 10 years” time were 65.3 points out of 100.

According to a study on the impact of AI on labor released by the Korea Worker Institute on August 7, the adoption rate of AI in the workplace averages 50 percent across industries, with most industries exceeding half. The most common industries are telecommunications (75 percent) and financial services (61.5 percent), while the least common are retail (28 percent) and education and others (17.9 percent).

On average, 30.7 percent of individuals use AI. It is higher in advertising and marketing (38.6 percent) and telecommunications (37.1 percent) and lower in office finance (12.3 percent) and retail (17.9 percent). By employment type, full-time employees (32.6 percent) and platform and freelance workers (30.4 percent) were more likely to use AI than temporary workers (28.4 percent).

The Korea Worker Institute and the Ubuntu Foundation conducted a survey of 881 workers (between 19 and 54 years old) who use online or platforms for their jobs and tasks from June 24 to July 10. Of the respondents, 386 were wage workers (262 regular and 124 non-regular) and 495 were platform and freelance workers.

When asked to rate the positive and negative impacts of AI in the workplace on a scale of 1 to 100, the positive impacts were slightly higher than the negative impacts. The positive impacts were "helping to fill what they lack" at 58.4 points, "reducing work hours" at 57.9 points, and "reducing workload" at 57.6 points. The negative impacts were “less work” at 52.2 points, "fear of job loss" at 50.9 points, and "lower income” at 49.5 points.

Positive impacts were higher among full-time employees and middle- to high-income earners, while negative impacts were higher among part-time employees and low-income earners. Among the positive impacts, full-time employees gave 61.1 points to "helping to fill what they lack" and 62.5 points to "reduced work hours" among those earning between 2.5 million and 4 million won per month. Among the negative impacts, non-regular workers gave 58.3 points to "fear of job loss" and 53.7 points to "less work" among those earning less than 2.5 million won per month.

When asked about the negative impacts of AI for those who claimed to be “using AI themselves,” the results were "less work" (33.7 percent), "lower income" (32.6 percent), and "fewer workloads" (26.1 percent). "Fewer workloads" refers to the negative impact of having less work, resulting in a decrease in income or job security.

Platform and freelance workers had above-average rates of "less work" (36.2 percent) and "lower income" (33.7 percent). For non-regular workers, “fewer workloads” (30.9 percent) was relatively high.

Concerns about the “possibility of losing their job in 10 years due to AI” were 65.3 points out of 100. By industry, webtoons and web novels (75.9 points), media (75 points), and advertising and marketing (71.1 points) were higher than average. The fear of losing a job was also higher than average among non-regular workers (69.9 points), middle-aged workers (68.1 points), women (66.9 points), and those with no work education (66.0 points).

Kim Jong-jin, head of the Korea Worker Institute, said, "We need to offset the negativity of the impact of AI introduction and utilization on jobs and establish measures for positivity."

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.