STA, 4 April 2018 - A study released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests (OECD) Slovenia has the second highest share of jobs at high risk of automation among the 32 OECD members surveyed. It is eighth when combining this share with the percentage of jobs that are likely to undergo significant change due to automation.

The working paper assesses that about 14% of jobs in OECD countries are highly automatable, meaning the risk of automation for them is above 70%. Another 32% of jobs could face substantial change in how they are carried out, meaning an automation risk of 50% to 70%.

For Slovenia, the estimated share of jobs at high risk of automation is 25%, which puts the country only behind Slovakia, 33% of whose jobs are considered highly automatable. This is only the case with 6% of the jobs in Norway.

More generally, jobs in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic countries and the Netherlands are less automatable than jobs in Eastern European countries, South European countries, Germany, Chile and Japan. Slovenia is eighth overall when combing the 50-70% risk and 70%-plus categories.

At present, about 40% of workers participate in job-related training on average across OECD countries, but participation often amounts to just a few hours per year, the OECD has pointed out.

In addition, there are substantial differences across countries and socio-demographic groups. For instance, data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills shows that only 16% of workers in Turkey and Greece participated in job-related training in the year preceding the survey, compared to almost 60% in Denmark and New Zealand.

The share for Slovenia was slightly below the 40% OECD average, but the Slovenian state provided more training for low-skilled workers than was average among the organisation's members.

The OECD working paper, entitled Automation, Skills Use and Training (PDF here) and part of the Future of Work initiative, shows low-skilled people and youth are among those most at risk.

Young people often combine studying with work in these sectors and even highly-educated young people start working in junior and routine roles before moving to jobs that make better use of their cognitive and social skills and are therefore less prone to automation.

Thus, the OECD notes new ways must be found to help youth obtain work experience while studying and also highlights the importance of providing retraining and social protection for the 14% of workers who may see their job being entirely restructured.