State warns AI poses threat to office jobs mostly held by women

Gov. Kathy Hochul warned Wednesday that artificial intelligence poses a significant threat to administrative roles held by women as New York maps out its plan to address workers displaced by AI.

The governor met on Wednesday in her midtown Manhattan office with women from around the state who shared concerns about how companies are using AI to screen job candidates and justify layoffs.

On Long Island, office and administrative roles make up about 13% of jobs, with about 169,000 people employed in positions such as executive assistants, bookkeepers and customer service representatives, according to state Labor Department data.

The Labor Department projects that new openings in these occupations will grow at one of the slowest paces among all job categories, with the number of openings expected to increase just 0.3% a year through 2032 on Long Island.

That’s a brighter picture than the outlook statewide. The Labor Department projects there will be a decline of 7,100 job openings in office and administrative occupations annually through 2034, or a 0.6% decline per year.

At Wednesday's event, Hochul noted women hold about 84% of these administrative roles statewide and will feel an outsize impact if such roles are eliminated because of AI.

“I want to make sure that we in New York are prepared to manage this, especially for women in the workforce,” Hochul said.

The disruption from AI comes as New York State has made significant progress in narrowing the gender pay gap.

The median pay for women working full time rose to 91.9% of the median pay for men in 2024, according to state Department of Labor analysis of U.S. Census data published this year.

A decade ago, the median full-time female worker earned 86.9% of the median male worker's wages in New York. But those gains were not uniform, and the pay gap is wider between Black and Hispanic women and white men.

Office and administrative jobs are one of the categories with the greatest risk for displacement by technology powered by large language models, such as ChatGPT, said Molly Kinder, co-chair of the governor’s FutureWorks Commission and a former researcher at Brookings Institution at Washington, D.C.

It’s important for the state to prepare for the ways AI could significantly alter the workforce, Kinder said.

“The opportunity is that it could free up time to do other tasks and potentially even higher-paid tasks,” she said at the event. “But there's also the risk of displacement, and that's the scenario that I'm most focused on and tracking closely.”

Kinder said displacement might look different from past economic changes, such as factory closures. These jobs could be eliminated one or two at a time within offices, she said.

“What's really important to note is that these jobs are middle-class jobs, and the women in them have fewer cushions if change comes really fast,” Kinder said.

Long Island’s economy is well-positioned to withstand AI disruption because local jobs are concentrated in industries, such as healthcare, education and tourism, that are not easily automated, said Steven Kent, an economics professor at Molloy University in Rockville Centre.

Productivity gains from AI could also generate new business activity that requires administrative workers to interact with customers.

“These jobs are still customer-facing in many ways, and customers want to speak to people,” Kent said. 

Petra Cruz, an administrative assistant at the Dominican Women’s Development Center in Washington Heights, told the governor there are certain job responsibilities that AI cannot replace.

“If a domestic violence victim comes into my office screaming, crying, a robot is not going to be able to be empathetic or non-judgmental or hold her hand or reference her to a shelter,” Cruz said.

The governor’s 20-member commission aims to develop recommendations by the fall that Hochul can incorporate in her State of the State policy proposals in January.

Hochul said those policies would address how workers can learn to use AI in their jobs or train for roles in industries that will be more resistant to AI displacement, such as healthcare.

“We have to figure this out,” she said.

By Jonathan LaMantia

jonathan.lamantia@newsday.com@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.