Bridging skill gaps for the future: new jobs creation in the AI age
27 Mar 2026
13:00 -14:00
Times are shown in local time
Open to: All
Room W2.01 (Cambridge Judge Business School)
Trumpington St
Cambridge
CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
Join us for a seminar discussion surrounding jobs creation in the AI age
Speaker: Marina Mendes Tavares, Senior Economist at the IMF
Discussion on a recent IMF SDN: Bridging Skill Gaps for the Future: New Jobs Creation in the AI Age, joint work with Florence Jaumotte, Jaden Kim, David Koll, Elmer Z Li, Longji Li, Giovanni Melina and Alina Song.
About the seminar topic
The demand and supply of new skills – especially in IT and AI – are reshaping labour markets, impacting wages and hiring. About one in 10 job vacancies in advanced economies demands at least one new skill, often appearing first in the United States. The incidence is about half of that in emerging market economies. These skills boost average wages and employment but deepen polarisation, mostly benefitting high- and – through higher consumption of services – low-skilled workers, and potentially contributing to the shrinking of the middle class. Vacancies demanding AI skills post higher wages, but the diffusion of such skills is linked to lower employment in occupations with high exposure and low complementarity to AI, posing challenges for the youth. A Skill Imbalance Index reveals wide cross-country differences. Economies facing strong demand should prioritise education and reskilling, while those facing strong supply should foster firms’ absorption through innovation and access to credit.
Speaker bio
Marina M Tavares is a Senior Economist in the Structural and Climate Policies Division of the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. Her work sits at the intersection of AI adoption and labour markets, focusing on how countries can capture productivity gains while supporting workers. She led 2 IMF Staff Discussion Notes – Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work, and Bridging Skill Gaps for the Future: New Jobs Creation in the AI Age – and the development of the IMF’s AI Preparedness Index, a cross-country framework to assess readiness for AI adoption. Previously, she led a working group on macroeconomic policy and inequality under the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office–IMF collaboration. Prior to joining the Fund, she was an Assistant Professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Minnesota.
Register
No registration required. If you have any questions about this seminar, please email Henning Zschietzshmann.