E2 Occupational reassignment

Topic

The model analyzes how a society can respond to labor displacement caused by artificial intelligence by redistributing workers to activities with greater absorption capacity. For each occupation, the number of people who can be released due to automation is first determined. Since the analysis involves people, the displaced workforce is treated as whole units, avoiding the consideration of worker fractions. The resulting total displacement is compared against a society-determined tolerable rate of AI-induced unemployment. This parameter represents an explicit form of social awareness: as long as induced unemployment remains within this threshold, no further intervention is required, whereas any displacement exceeding it must be reabsorbed by other activities.

The capacity to accommodate these workers is not evenly distributed across occupations. Occupations that are less susceptible to automation and already hold a significant place in the labor structure serve as the natural destinations for employment expansion. Based on these characteristics, the relative absorption capacity of each occupation is estimated and subsequently normalized, ensuring that the total number of new available positions exactly matches the number of workers requiring reabsorption.

The transition from affected occupations to receiving ones is represented by a labor migration matrix. This matrix is constructed using a doubly constrained gravity model, adapting a methodology commonly used in transport and migration modeling. In this instance, the ease of movement depends not on geographic distance, but on the similarity between the skills and tasks associated with the source and destination occupations. The greater this similarity, the more natural the labor transition becomes. Iteratively adjusted balancing factors ensure that the exact number of displaced individuals leaves each source occupation, while each receiving occupation accepts only the number of workers it has the capacity to absorb.

The outcome is not merely the relocation of workers, but the progressive modification of society's occupational composition. The migration matrix makes it possible to calculate the new staffing levels for each occupation and observe changes in their relative share of total employment. This allows for an analysis of the transformation in the professional profile driven by an economy that is adopting AI while simultaneously attempting to limit the social consequences regarding unemployment.

Effective reabsorption also requires creating the material conditions necessary for these new jobs to exist. Receiving occupations may require additional infrastructure, new job positions, equipment, training, or professional retraining. The cost associated with this expansion represents the effort required to turn potential absorption capacity into actual employment. Thus, the response to technological displacement is framed as a responsibility shared by the business sector and the State: automation frees up labor, while social awareness determines the level of acceptable unemployment and the resources that must be mobilized to facilitate the transition to a new occupational structure.

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