A digital gender gap threatens women’s jobs in the Arab world

The Director-General of the International Labor Organization, Gilbert Hongbo, warned of the widening of what he described as the “digital gender gap” in the Arab region, stressing that women face the risk of losing jobs due to automation and artificial intelligence at a rate three times greater than men, in light of the rapid transformations in the global labor market.

Hongbo’s statements came during his participation in a dialogue session on the second day of the third edition of the International Labor Market Conference, held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Despite the warnings, Hongbo downplayed fears related to the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs, noting that recent research by the International Labor Organization shows that the percentage of jobs at risk of complete disappearance does not exceed 3.3 percent globally, while about 25 percent of jobs will witness shifts in the nature of tasks and responsibilities, which suggests a “job enhancement” scenario rather than eliminating them.

He explained that the risks are particularly concentrated in administrative and clerical jobs of a repetitive nature, which are sectors that witness a high presence of women in the Arab region, warning that the continuation of the digital divide without proactive policies will lead to deepening inequality.

Hongbo called on developing countries to invest in digital infrastructure and expand access to the Internet, while urging developed countries to develop flexible policies that keep pace with technological transformations, and link continuous training with job creation, while strengthening social protection networks.

At the conclusion of his speech, he stressed that human skills, especially emotional intelligence and the ability to solve problems and effective communication, will become the most in demand in the labor market in the future, stressing that the employment of artificial intelligence must remain directed to serving humans and improving the quality of their working lives, not undermining it.