Statistics Poland: Over 4.5 Million Poles Work in Jobs at Risk from AI Automation

Statistics Poland (Główny Urząd Statystyczny, GUS) has published an experimental study that for the first time cross-references Poland's occupational structure with international research on how susceptible individual professions are to automation and generative artificial intelligence. The report shows that more than 4.5 million people in Poland do work that AI could partially automate, while about 640,000 hold positions where the scope for automation is greatest.

The Statistics Poland publication is titled "Zróżnicowanie zawodów na rynku pracy w Polsce" ("Differentiation of Occupations in the Polish Labor Market") and was presented at the 6th Congress of Polish Statistics (VI Kongres Statystyki Polskiej). It is the first study of its kind by the national statistical office that goes beyond describing the employment structure, overlaying it with findings from international research into occupational exposure to generative AI conducted by, among others, NASK and the ILO.

Who is most at risk

The list of occupations most susceptible to replacement by AI systems is dominated by roles centered on processing information: administrative staff and secretaries, finance and statistics department employees, accountants performing routine tasks, call center consultants, and customer service staff handling repetitive inquiries. Statistics Poland also includes systems analysts and some programmers and IT managers in this group, since their work largely involves processing and organizing information, the kind of task generative AI handles best.

The average age of employees in these positions is around 40. The report stresses that high exposure to automation does not automatically mean all employees in these roles will lose their jobs, but rather signals a shift in duties, from performing routine tasks to overseeing them.

The gap between women and men

One of the report's most striking findings is the scale of the gender gap. Women make up 62.8 percent of those employed in automation-prone occupations, and that share rises to 77.2 percent in the highest-risk group. Statistics Poland notes that this stems from the structure of employment rather than any particular vulnerability of women to being replaced by AI. Women simply dominate administrative, secretarial and accounting occupations, which statistically sit closest to the automation threshold.

The geography of risk

Occupations most exposed to automation are not distributed evenly across the country. The report points to a clear concentration in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan and other major metropolitan areas, home to the largest number of BPO centers, shared service centers and outsourcing firms serving foreign clients. These cities concentrate the greatest number of data-entry, document-handling and standardized data-analysis positions, exactly the kind of tasks language-based AI systems can most easily take over.

Occupations resistant to automation

On the other end of the scale, Statistics Poland places occupations that demand strong social skills, legal responsibility, or physical work in variable environments. Among the relatively safe occupations, the report lists doctors, nurses and paramedics, teachers, and skilled trades such as plumbers, electricians and hairdressers. Notably, many of these occupations also appear on the shortage lists in the Barometr Zawodów (Poland's occupational shortage forecast), suggesting demand for them will persist regardless of automation's progress.

The report stresses that the key distinction, also highlighted by the ILO, the OECD, and analysts at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, concerns the automation of tasks rather than entire occupations. - Statistics Poland (GUS), "Zróżnicowanie zawodów na rynku pracy w Polsce"

That distinction carries practical weight for Polish employers and employees alike. Rather than positions disappearing entirely, the report anticipates a gradual reorganization of duties, in which AI takes over some routine tasks while employees focus on oversight, interpreting results, and interactions that require social skills. For HR departments, this means reviewing career development paths, especially at large shared service centers that employ thousands of people in administrative roles.

For office workers at BPO and SSC centers themselves, the report signals that it is worth investing in skills that go beyond information processing, such as project management, higher-complexity client communication, or overseeing the quality of AI systems' work. Statistics Poland says it plans to expand this experimental publication and, in future editions, include regional data and forecasts of change across individual industries.

Sources: MamStartup (mamstartup.pl), eGospodarka.pl (egospodarka.pl)