Women are more likely than men to experience negative career consequences because of AI

Europe is the place where women live best in terms of gender equality. But the picture isn’t equal across the bloc, according to the Gender Equality Index.

Providing a ranking from zero to 100 on national gender gaps among EU countries, the EU average is 67.9. 

2002’s index identified Sweden as the European leader of gender equality, with a score of 83.9 points. Denmark and the Netherlands were the second and third most gender-equal countries. 

But the flip side of this is countries where equality is poor. In the bottom rankings, Greece scored 53.4 points and Hungary and Romania also performed badly.

With predictions finding that EU gender parity will not be achieved for another 60 years, women are already contending with lower equality rankings across a range of factors that include economic, political, education, and health-based issues.

Women more likely to be replaced by AI

Now, a new threat has emerged as recent data released by McKinsey has established that women are 1.5 times more likely to be displaced by automation.

Workers in general are fearful about the rise of generative AI: a recent Microsoft report found that 49% of workers fear they will lose their jobs to AI. Another report from Accenture found that around 40% of all working hours could be impacted by AI large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT-4.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs says AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs and replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe.

McKinsey’s report highlighted that women are particularly at risk because, in a US context, women make up the largest percentage of workers in low-wage jobs, or those earning less than $30,800 a year. 

In the EU, things aren’t much better with Eurostat figures finding that only one manager out of three in the EU is a woman, and this reduces further in senior management positions.

Job losses due to the rise of AI are likely to occur in customer service, office administrative roles and food services, which McKinsey estimates will equate to 11.8 million workers overall by 2030 and are also heavily represented by female workers. 

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Future of Work Report 2023 also reports mostly clerical or secretarial roles, bank tellers and data entry clerks, are likely to decline the fastest.

Get out ahead

So, if you’d like to get out ahead of these predictions, perhaps a new position is the first step. The Silicon Canals Job Board is a great place to start a job hunt. It contains thousands of attractive open roles, like the three below. 

DevOps Engineer in Oldenburg (m/w/d), BTC Embedded Systems AG, Bremen

As a DevOps Engineer you’ll be part of an agile team, and will monitor and analyze operations, including error analysis and debugging, and coordinate with the partners responsible for operations. You’ll support the development and development-related measures such as database updates, you’ll develop software in Java and support deployment and releases.

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PayFit is an intuitive cloud-based payroll and employee management solution designed specifically for SMBs. As a Senior Software Engineer at PayFit, you collaborate with product and design teams to develop high-value features, drive the evolution of architecture and system, and ensure the availability, scalability, and efficiency of services.

Additionally, you will mentor team members, foster technical excellence, and lead cross-functional initiatives. You’ll need a Bachelor’s degree in computer science, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience, as well as a strong understanding of software fundamentals including data structures, software architecture, and design patterns.

Proficiency in software development, cloud architectures, systems design, and distributed systems is also required. Apply right now.

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Fivetran is building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies. It is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join its core platform team and perform a healthy mix of design and implementation tasks to advance the technical foundation behind the Fivetran product offering.

You will be execution-oriented, and understand the need to target your “innovation budget” for the greatest impact: you find the middle ground between “perfect, but takes forever to code” and “fixes it now, but nobody will ever be able to understand what I did”.

You should also know how to design and code systems and software that is effective, intuitive, easy-to-operate, and elegantly simple. If this sounds like the role for you, then you can find out more here.

Start your job search today on the Silicon Canals Job Board