London
CNN
Jobs that require artificial intelligence skills offer significantly higher salaries than those that don’t, according to a new study published Tuesday.
Consultancy firm PwC looked at adverts published last year for a range of jobs, including app developers, lawyers and accountants. It found that salaries for AI-related positions were on average 25% higher in the United States than for comparable jobs in the same field that did not require those skills.
The premium was 14% in Great Britain and 11% in Canada.
The differences were particularly pronounced in certain professions: in the United States, lawyers with AI skills could earn a 49% salary premium and financial analysts a 33% premium compared to workers in the same traditional jobs.
The PwC report is based on an analysis of more than 500 million job advertisements in 15 countries in North America, Europe and Asia.
Countries and sectors that have high demand for AI skills tend to have higher wage premiums, especially if there is a shortage of skilled professionals, said Mehdi Sahneh, senior economist at PwC UK.
Between 2012 and 2023, the number of jobs requiring AI skills grew 3.5 times faster than the total number of all jobs in the countries studied, according to the report.
Barret Kupelian, chief economist at PwC UK, also noted that the skill mix required by employers in professions exposed to artificial intelligence is changing around 25% faster than those that are not.
As the rise of artificial intelligence continues, this trend is likely to intensify, creating new roles while reducing demand for certain skills that can be learned more effectively with artificial intelligence, he adds.
The report also reveals that labor productivity in the sectors most exposed to artificial intelligence, that is, those in which artificial intelligence can be more easily used to perform certain tasks, such as financial services, is growing 4.8 times faster than in other sectors.
A business becomes more productive if it produces the same amount of goods or services, or more, with fewer people or if its employees work fewer hours. Higher labor productivity is the main driver of a higher standard of living.
Productivity growth is key to boosting real wages and supporting economic growth, especially when there is a threat of fewer working hours in the economy due to an aging population, Randall Kroszner, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said in a speech on Tuesday. .
Improving productivity is particularly important for some countries, such as the UK, where growth has been significantly slower since the global financial crisis than in previous years.
Artificial intelligence could be the missing piece of Britain’s productivity puzzle, boosting the economy, wages and living standards, PwC’s Sahneh said.