The OECD estimates that 27.4% of jobs in Spain are potentially at risk of task automation — a figure slightly higher than the OECD average (26%) — although the proportion of jobs at high risk of actual automation remains much lower, standing at 5.9%.
By Francisco Rodríguez Fernández
According to the article by Francisco Rodríguez Fernández, director of the Funcas Finance and Technology Observatory, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market in Spain: Occupational Exposure and Estimated Effects on Employment’, the adoption of artificial intelligence among Spanish companiesincreased from 12.4% to 21.1% between 2023 and 2025, concentrating in sectors where exposure to automation is already higher.
According to the author, although the distributional consequencesfall disproportionately on mid-level white-collar workers, thereby reversing the displacement trends observed previously, the situation in Spain, which is at an all-time high in employment, offers the opportunity to manage this transition from a position of relative strength.
“The relationship between artificial intelligence and employment has changed considerably since Frey and Osborne (2017) estimated that 47% of jobs in the United States were at high risk of automation, a figure that is now subject to methodological review. Second-generation indices, based on an analysis at the task level rather than occupational categories, show that exposure to generative AI is concentrated among workers with higher levels of education and higher wages, rather than in the routine manual jobs of the previous paradigm.
Empirical data reinforces this picture: productivity gains are significant, but they primarily benefit less experienced workers, whilst aggregate TFP gains over a ten-year horizon are estimated at less than 1%. By applying an adapted version of the AI occupational exposure index to Spain’s NOC-11 occupational classification, the model forecasts a net loss of between 1.7 and 2.3 million jobs between 2025 and 2035, with a central estimate of 2 million concentrated in administrative, technical support and scientific professional roles.
Conversely, complementarity effects benefit some 3.1 million workers in the services and manufacturing sectors, and the creation of 1.61 million new jobs is forecast, which places the net loss at around 400,000 jobs in the baseline scenario.
The distribution of this loss across geographical areas, sectors and skill levels is highly uneven, and the scope of the transition depends fundamentally on the pace at which displaced workers can access reskilling. Spain’s position at a time of record-high employment, whilst the adoption of AI is accelerating, represents an opportunity to manage this transition from a position of relative strength.
