{"id":96801,"date":"2025-08-25T21:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/96801\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T21:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:33:07","slug":"government-jobs-are-more-vulnerable-to-disruption-by-ai-study-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/96801\/","title":{"rendered":"Government jobs are more vulnerable to disruption by AI, study shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A study found that nearly three-quarters of the country\u2019s 1.1 million public sector workers are in roles that are highly exposed to AI.Cole Burston\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

A greater share of jobs in the public sector are vulnerable to automation by artificial intelligence tools than the Canadian work force as a whole, according to a new study from The Dais think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University. <\/p>\n

The study released Monday<\/a> found that nearly three-quarters of the country\u2019s 1.1 million public sector workers are in roles that are highly exposed to AI. Some of those jobs, about 25 per cent, are complementary with AI, meaning the technology can assist or augment the work. <\/p>\n

But 49 per cent of public sector jobs are made up of tasks that \u201ccurrent AI technologies are well positioned to substitute or replace.\u201d The same is true for about 29 per cent of the overall Canadian work force. (The study was limited to direct government jobs, and eliminated some, such as education and health care workers, from its tally.)<\/p>\n

The federal public service has the highest share of such workers, at 58 per cent, followed by the provinces. Both public sectors are more heavily stacked with people in business, finance and administrative roles, such as human resources professionals, auditors and accountants. These roles can involve repetitive tasks suited for AI. Municipalities employ more front-line workers, such as firefighters and landscapers, according to the study, which are less affected by generative AI. <\/p>\n

AI adoption is upending the job market for entry-level workers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe potential downside risk is as large as the opportunity,\u201d said Viet Vu, manager of economic research at The Dais. \u201cIt all depends on how you end up deploying the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are plenty of ways to use generative AI tools powered by large language models (LLMs) in the public sector to improve productivity. That includes transcription and translation, assisting with writing and editing reports and briefs, and even analyzing geospatial data for traffic and land use.<\/p>\n

There is also the risk that roles are replaced outright by AI tools. But Mr. Vu said the reality of some jobs is more complicated than that. He gave the example of using AI to summarize policy documents. \u201cOne potential instinct is the government to say, \u2018We don\u2019t need any policy analysts any more,\u2019\u201d Mr. Vu said. But that task is just one of many performed by policy analysts. <\/p>\n

Still, he could foresee the government deploying AI tools to help policy analysts improve productivity. \u201cLLMs will allow higher efficiencies to be gained, which may end up with fewer people in specific roles,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

That risk of displacement is one reason why the report recommends the public sector think seriously about long-term work-force planning, including efforts to provide training and education to help ensure those most vulnerable to displacement can transition to other jobs. Labour unions also need to be involved in these discussions, Mr. Vu said.<\/p>\n

Canadian CEOs are embracing generative AI\u2019s speed and efficiency. The impact on their employees is less certain<\/a><\/p>\n

Another of the report\u2019s recommendations is for public sector agencies to create an environment to experiment with AI and track successes and failures, including for low-risk repetitive tasks where the technology can augment work.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said<\/a> the federal public service needs to become more productive by \u201cdeploying AI at scale,\u201d which can also help improve service quality for Canadians. Last week, Ottawa said it had signed a non-binding agreement<\/a> with Cohere Inc. to look for ways to deploy AI within the public service.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney campaigned on a promise to cut back on operational spending, and ministers have been directed to find ways to do so in their departments. Jo\u00ebl Lightbound, the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, has said the government plans to reduce the size of the public service through attrition, while looking for ways to boost efficiency with technology.<\/p>\n

In the private sector, some chief executive officers are musing openly about slowing hiring or even reducing work forces because of AI. Canadian companies Klue Labs Inc. and Scinapsis Analytics Inc. have already made job cuts related to AI.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI developer Anthropic, made headlines earlier this year with his pronouncement that AI could eliminate<\/a> half of entry-level white collar jobs. <\/p>\n

But that opinion strikes others in the industry as farcical. \u201cDario was also saying a couple years ago that AI was going to kill us all,\u201d Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez told The Globe and Mail earlier this month, referring to concerns about the existential risks of AI<\/a>. \u201cThat narrative has changed as well, now that we\u2019re not all dead. AI will be an augmentation and not a replacement of the work force.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A study found that nearly three-quarters of the country\u2019s 1.1 million public sector…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-96801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}