Economist
AI displacement risk
30%
Range 26.21–34.69%
Economist has 88% AI task overlap but 49% human bottleneck protection — at the 80th percentile across 562 occupations. High exposure meets organizational friction, creating offsetting forces.
Professionals·SGD 6,080/mo (4,848–20,000)·~1.8K workers in SG·Updated 2026-06-11
Structural pressure, not a prediction of job loss. Displacement tends to arrive through slower hiring, wage compression and role redesign before layoffs.
Why This Score
88% of tasks overlap with current AI
49% human advantage from judgment & presence
59% demand buffer from the local labour market
AI usage 16pp below theoretical exposure
These factors interact with each other — the final score is not a simple sum of these bars.
How much AI overlaps with this job's tasks, offset by human advantages and local demand. Score stability: watch. How this works
Tasks AI can handle
With 88% AI task overlap (based on Felten AIOE, Anthropic Economic Index, Eloundou GPT exposure, and ILO occupational exposure), the Economist tasks most exposed include: first-draft writing, summarizing documents, headline variations, background research, and social media copy generation.
- • Study economic and statistical data in area of specialization, such as finance, labor, or agriculture.
- • Develop economic models, forecasts, or scenarios to predict future economic and environmental outcomes.
- • Compile, analyze, and report data to explain economic phenomena and forecast market trends, applying mathematical models and statistical techniques.
O*NET tasks for this occupation with the most observed AI usage (Anthropic task data).
What AI can't do here
At 49% human bottleneck protection, the tasks that remain hardest to automate for Economist include: source development, investigative interviewing, editorial judgment, fact-checking in ambiguous situations, and ethical/legal calls on publication.
Main insulation channels: Deep preparation + Non-routine work — the work-context dimensions behind this occupation's human bottleneck.
- • Review documents written by others.
Highest-importance tasks with no observed AI usage in the same data — absence of observed usage, not proof of immunity.
Skills to focus on
Noy & Zhang (2023) found writing professionals using AI completed tasks 37% faster with no quality loss — but the gap between experienced and novice writers narrowed significantly.
Sources: Felten AIOE (2021), Anthropic Economic Index (2026), Eloundou GPT Exposure (Science, 2024), ILO GenAI (2025), Pizzinelli et al. bottleneck model. Full methodology.
Singapore Now
Current labour market conditions and how they affect this role.
Cooling, but not collapsing. Vacancies and re-entry are softer, yet retrenchment remains low and hiring still exceeds resignations.
Vacancy
3.1%
↓ 3.1% YoY
Hiring
1.5%
vs 0.9% resign
Retrenchment
1.5
per 1,000 · low
Re-entry
67.7%
find work in 12mo· -5.3pp
Professionals, Managers, Executives & Technicians · 2025 Q4
Top Industries
Industry vacancy overlays use the latest published detailed cross-tab, which can lag the main labour monitor.
What You Can Do
Economist has some offset potential, but it depends on task redesign holding up in practice and on workers clearing the main switching frictions.
Published transition support
Related roles you could transition to
Risk-reducingHigh displacement pressure, but comparatively credible risk-reducing moves exist — the strongest scores 72% match. Escape-route quality, not pressure alone, shapes how risk resolves.
Compare within Professionals
See how this compares to similar occupations
Compare with... →Classification
Higher risk than 80% of occupations · V7 structural score
Raw scores
AIOE 1.404 · θ 0.674 · C-AIOE 1.139
Stability
watch · Optimistic 28% · Pessimistic 38%
Score range (best/worst case)
Exposure 84–92% · Net risk 26.21–34.69%
Scoring basis
V7 structural score. Uses task-concentration-weighted exposure, human bottleneck, and demand resilience. V6 baseline fields are retained for release-to-release comparison.-3.0pp versus retained V6 baseline.
Wage range (SGD/mo)
25th 4,848 · Median 6,080 · 75th 20,000
Evidence & sources
Data matching
direct · SSOC 26310
Real-world AI usage: -16% vs estimated
Data quality
88% · Matching 1.00 · Market data 0.70 · Freshness 0.84
97% weighted task match · 17% effective coverage
AI overlap by data source
Weights: aioe 24% · anthropic 26% · eloundou 25% · ilo 26%
Conflicting data signals
Tools & offset factors
What helps
- A meaningful share of the work can likely be reorganized around AI rather than removed outright.
What could slow it down
- Current demand support is thin, so offsets may take longer to show up.
Worker profile & local context
- Vacancy rate is 3.1% and was essentially flat versus last quarter.
- Hiring read: recruitment is running above resignation (1.5% vs 0.9%).
- Retrenchment was low at 1.5 per 1,000 employees.
- 67.7% of retrenched workers re-entered employment within 12 months.
- Employer pressure is low, based on 2 recent Singapore-relevant company signals.
Worker profile
Gender mix
38% male / 62% femalePublished Singapore worker composition for the detailed occupation family 26 Legal, Social, Religious & Cultural Professionals.
Employment structure
Employee-heavy96% employees, 4% employers or self-employed workers.
Work arrangement
Mostly full-time4% part-time and 96% full-time in 2025.
Age profile
Mid-career heavy14% aged 15 to 29, 62% aged 30 to 49, and 24% aged 50 or older.
Qualification mix
Degree-heavyDegree 81%; Diploma / professional qualification 15%.
Where this work is concentrated
Top planning areas
Sengkang, Bedok, Tampines19% of workers in this occupation group live in these three planning areas.
Residential concentration
Broadly distributed30% live across the top five planning areas in the 2020 Census.
Commute pattern
Mid-range commutesEstimated average commute 37.5 minutes. 33% take 46 minutes or more.
Role profile
How this role's work breaks down across key dimensions. This is a general profile, not an individual measurement.
Workflow dimensions (0 = low, 1 = high)
How this changes by career stage
Senior workers benefit from institutional knowledge and judgment that AI cannot replicate. Entry-level roles have higher task overlap with AI.
Frequently asked questions
Will AI replace Economist?
Economist has 88% AI task overlap but 49% human bottleneck protection — at the 80th percentile across 562 occupations. High exposure meets organizational friction, creating offsetting forces. Net displacement risk: 30% (High). Median wage: SGD 6,080/month.
What is the AI risk score for Economist?
Economist has an AI displacement risk of 30%, rated High. AI task overlap: 88%. Human advantage: 49%. Local demand buffer: 59%.
What career transitions are available for Economist?
Economist has modeled transition pathways to related occupations. The strongest adjacent pathway is Minister of religion, based on skill and wage similarity (model-estimated). Transition scoring accounts for wage preservation, training ease, and destination quality.
How does Economist salary compare in the live market?
Economist earns a median gross wage of SGD 6,080/month in the live market (25th-75th percentile: SGD 4,848-20,000). This is 35% above median across all 562 scored occupations, and 6% below group median within Professionals occupations.