ADP Chief Economist Analyzes AI Effects on Office Tasks

Nela Richardson, ADP chief economist, is directing a project that measures how AI alters specific work activities instead of tracking whole jobs. U.S. workers. The team extracts tasks from postings using natural language processing and compares them to the Department of Labor’s O*NET catalog. Tasks that appear across different job titles receive the same wage value drawn from ADP payroll data.

Richardson stated that the growth of office jobs after 2000 resulted from the spread of personal computers, the internet, and spreadsheets. 5 percent by 2025. She noted that the expansion of these roles coincided with the working lives of the baby-boom generation and was never guaranteed to continue.

Richardson said the remaining tasks after automation tend to require judgment and autonomy, characteristics she associates with knowledge work. ” She added that companies gained experience with rapid change during the pandemic but are still developing deliberate criteria for adopting AI tools.

“No one ever promised a 50-year cycle for white-collar work.”