Bank of England: AI is boosting UK productivity, but also having a negative impact on employment.

TechFlow news, August 6, according to an analysis by the Bank of England, the productivity of UK enterprises developing and using AI is increasing, but this growth comes at the cost of employment. Bank of England staff pointed out in a blog post that compared to the decade before the pandemic, the contribution of software and IT consulting companies to annual productivity growth increased tenfold, contributing 0.1 percentage points during the period from 2023 to 2025.

At the same time, information service providers transformed from a drag on productivity to a driver during this period. The Bank of England found that the productivity of enterprises adopting AI is also continuously improving, especially in industries such as office administration and business services, where repetitive tasks (such as scheduling meetings or processing invoices) are well-suited for automation. However, the improvement in labor productivity comes at the cost of reduced employment opportunities to some extent.

Another blog post from the Bank of England pointed out that in the past three years, job vacancies for occupations most affected by AI decreased by 15%, while job vacancies for occupations moderately affected and less affected decreased by 10% and 6% respectively. Customer service and administrative positions are particularly susceptible to the impact of AI, with their job vacancies showing the most significant decline, decreasing by more than 20%. (Jin10)