Abstract This study investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on labor markets in Saudi Arabia, focusing on job displacement, skill transformation, and emerging forms of employment control. Drawing on publicly available data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, GASTAT, and the International Labour Organization (ILO), we employ a novel statistical framework combining longitudinal regression analysis, clustering techniques, and principal component analysis to assess the structural shifts in employment patterns across sectors between 2015 and 2024. The findings reveal a significant correlation between AI adoption and the reduction of routine-based jobs, particularly in administrative and clerical roles, while simultaneously increasing demand for high-skilled digital competencies. Furthermore, the research highlights how AI-driven automation reinforces labor segmentation by nationality, with foreign workers increasingly concentrated in vulnerable positions and nationals facing both exclusion and reconfiguration in the labor market. The paper contributes to critical debates on technological change and labor control by illustrating how AI reshapes not only work content but also worker subjectivity under techno-economic regimes. It challenges deterministic narratives of AI as purely disruptive, showing instead its dual role in both displacing and reconstituting labor within neoliberal development frameworks such as Vision 2030.
Walaa Magdy Rezk (2025) studied this question.