1、 World Employment and Social Outlook:September 2024 Update 1 The labour income share is a widely used measure of inequality which measures the proportion of total income in a country that employed people earn by working.This share declined globally by 0.6 percentage points between 2019 and 2022 and
2、has since remained flat.Although this trend is consistent with the longer-term observed decline(1.6 percentage points between 2004 and 2024),nearly 40 per cent of the total decline observed over the past two decades occurred during the three years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020-22.While t
3、he decrease appears modest in terms of percentage points,in 2024 it represents an annual shortfall in labour income of$2.4 trillion(in constant PPP)compared to what workers would have earned had the labour income share remained stable since 2004.Amongst other factors,economic studies have identified
4、 technology as a key driver of declines in the labour income share.Recent developments in the artificial intelligence(AI)field make it particularly relevant to analyse the relationship between technological innovations and the labour income share.Across a sample of 36 countries with the required dat
5、a,composed of mostly advanced economies,technological innovations over the past two decades are found to produce persistent increases in labour productivity and output,however they can also reduce the labour income share.The evidence presented suggests that automation-oriented technological progress
6、 could be contributing to labour income share declines.If historical patterns were to persist,absent a stronger policy response across a wide range of relevant domains,the recent breakthroughs in generative AI could exert further downward pressure on the labour income share.This is not a prediction