'A slow-moving tsunami': IMF chief warns AI will wipe out 40% of jobs and gut government tax revenues

IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the Fund's annual meetings in Bangkok on Monday, warned that artificial intelligence will ultimately affect roughly 40% of jobs worldwide — augmenting, downgrading or eliminating them entirely. She cautioned that the fiscal fallout could be severe, with AI funnelling economic gains toward those who own capital rather than the workforce, which provides the bulk of income-tax revenue. Young people entering the labour market face the sharpest near-term risk as entry-level roles disappear.

AI affects around 60% of jobs in advanced economies, compared with just 23% in low-income countries — though Georgieva argued the lower share merely means 'AI is further away', not that poorer nations are insulated from its effects.

Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, appearing on the same Bangkok panel, noted that demand for new graduates is already weakening in AI-exposed sectors and urged governments to address the drop in entry-level hiring.

The upheaval adds to pressures already bearing down on UK workers following Labour's national insurance rise, with nearly one million 16-to-24-year-olds already outside employment, education and training — the group classified as NEETs.