Research · By AISkillScore · Updated · 7 min read
Three figures here were read at the publisher. The ILO says one in four workers are in an occupation with some generative AI exposure, and that jobs transform. BLS says high exposure does not mean employment decline. Stanford and ADP find no economy-wide displacement, and a 19 percent gap for ages 22 to 25.
Gmyrek and colleagues, ILO Working Paper 140, 20 May 2025: "Globally, one in four workers are in an occupation with some GenAI exposure." The same paper says transformation of jobs is the most likely impact, because most occupations include tasks that require human input (E1).
Do not shorten that to "one in four jobs will be replaced." The paper says the opposite of replacement as the main outcome.
On its AI exposure categories page, last modified 27 August 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says: "'High' or 'Very high' relative AI exposure does not necessarily mean employment will decline." Its 2025–2035 projections release says the U.S. economy is projected to add 5.9 million jobs, growing 3.5 percent (E6).
A count of how many high-exposure occupations are still projected to grow is our arithmetic from their table, not a sentence they published. This article does not present that count as theirs.
Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen, revised August 2026, using ADP payroll data through June 2026: no evidence of widespread, economy-wide job displacement. Employment of young workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations stands 19 percent below where it would be had it kept pace with less-exposed peers. Experienced workers show no comparable gap. The authors call the facts descriptive indicators, not causal estimates (E20).
Earlier drafts of the same paper used 13 percent and 16 percent. This page quotes the August 2026 revision only.
McKinsey's figure of about 30 percent of U.S. hours, and Goldman Sachs' figure of about 300 million full-time jobs exposed, remain in our evidence file with a provenance note: we have not been able to read those pages at source from this environment. They are not repeated in this article until that reading exists.
Stack Overflow's 2025 survey is read at source and is about developers using AI tools, not about jobs lost: 84 percent using or planning to use them, and 51 percent of professional developers using them daily (E4).
The next step is the free task check, which stays at the task level.
workers globally are in an occupation with some exposure to generative AI; the ILO's conclusion is transformation, not replacement
ILO Working Paper 140 (ILO/NASK, 2025)
The ILO says one in four workers globally are in an occupation with some generative-AI exposure, and that transformation is the likely impact.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says high or very high relative AI exposure does not necessarily mean employment will decline.
The August 2026 Stanford and ADP paper says no. It reports a 19 percent gap for ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations relative to less-exposed peers, and it says that figure is descriptive, not causal.
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