Reproducibility package for Poland in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Is the Workforce Ready?

This paper documents the incidence and characteristics of workers’ exposure to AI in Poland compared to other countries and examines the potential barriers that could limit workers’ realized productivity gains. Polish workers are less exposed to AI compared to US and European workers and that the exposure gap is primarily driven by workers’ lower use of computers at work. Second, when looking at workers’ readiness to effectively adopt AI technologies, we find that Polish workers have lower transversal and cognitive skills (assumed to be complementary to AI) than comparator countries and have less opportunities to participate in upskilling and reskilling initiatives. The cross-country skill gap is significantly higher among AI exposed workers. Consistently, Polish workers report substantially higher perceived needs for digital skills training than comparable workers in other countries. However, workers’ awareness of skill gaps is not uniform: it is high among more educated and younger workers, while not significant among older workers. Third, we do not find any systematic relationship between occupational exposure to AI and existing labor shortages in Poland. AI could mitigate existing labor shortages for legal, social and cultural professionals. Finally, the paper provides a framework to guide social protection, skills and employment policies to address AI-driven job displacement and equip workers with skills complementary to AI. We contribute to the literature on measuring workers’ exposure to AI by comparing alternative task-based measures of AI-exposure and validating the AI exposure metrics against self-reported use of generative AI tools at work in Poland.