Source: Andrew Green and Lucas Lamby, “The supply, demand and characteristics of the AI workforce across OECD countries,” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 287, February 2023.
Commentary: A recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) working paper analyzes the size and demographics of the “AI workforce” in 24 OECD nations. The AI workforce is defined as “the subset of workers with skills in statistics, computer science and machine learning who could actively develop and maintain AI systems.” In 2019, the AI workforce made up 0.37 percent of the total workforce in the United States, which ranked 10th out of the 24 nations and was only slightly higher than the OECD average of 0.34 percent. Just as concerning was that the United States had the third-lowest growth rate in its AI workforce between 2017 and 2019. The United States also had the second-largest gap between the share of AI workers who are foreign-born and the share of all workers with a postsecondary degree who are foreign-born.
AI will undoubtedly be a vital technology going forward for both economic competitiveness and national security. While the United States remains the world leader in AI research and development, without an AI-based workforce, it’ll struggle to reap the rewards of its research. The statistics reported in this paper highlight the United States’ need to improve its science, technology, engineering, and math education and to increase its intake of high-skilled immigrants.
