Guideline to Boost Jobs, Mitigate Risks as AI Advances

China recently rolled out a guideline on adapting to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to promote employment-friendly development.

Issued by the General Office of the State Council, it sets out 18 major tasks in six areas:

-Boosting AI's job-creation potential

-Making AI adoption more employment-friendly

-Boosting workers' digital literacy and skills

-Enabling employment services through AI

-Strengthening labor and social security protections

-Monitoring and addressing employment risks

The document says micro, small and medium-sized enterprises should cultivate new drivers to retain and expand jobs. They and individual industrial and commercial households will have equal legal access to smart production factors including data and algorithms.

This will support them in exploring low-cost, lightweight AI upgrading development methods, strengthening their capacity to create jobs.

The development of new occupations and release of corresponding occupational standards should be accelerated to grow demand for emerging roles such as digital management specialists, AI engineering technicians and AI trainers.

It highlights mitigating the job displacement caused by AI applications, directing to leverage AI to improve working environments, raise occupational safety standards and boost work quality and efficiency. AI's application in roles facing labor shortages or carrying high safety risks is to be prioritized.

The scope, intensity and pace of AI application in labor-intensive sectors will be steered to minimize disruptions to workers. Enterprises should explore unemployment buffer schemes, notify affected workers in advance during large-scale AI adoption, and provide support for career transition and redeployment.

A special AI training program will be implemented. College graduates, migrant workers and unemployed individuals are encouraged to join employment and entrepreneurship training programs in AI while local authorities are urged to provide AI-related skills training.

Public AI literacy education should be advanced nationwide, with more free public courses rolled out.

Human resources services should be empowered with AI, and market entities should innovate and refine new products and models such as recruitment large language models, intelligent interviewing tools and virtual reality training solutions.

The guideline also calls for stronger inter-departmental sharing of data on AI-related industries and employment, and joint development of intelligent monitoring and analytical models for regional and sectoral employment data.

It advocates deeper forward-looking research and assessment of employment risks while mechanisms for responding to such employment risks should be improved.

Source: Science and Technology Daily